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DISTRICT SCHOOL 



AS IT WAS 



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DISTRICT SCHOOL 



AS IT WAS 



ONE WHO WENT 




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Entered according to Act of CpWres^«f< the ycai 1S33, by 

Carter, Hekde e 1 ^ n d Co. 
in the Clerk's office of the District Court of ftlaasachusatts,. 



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t. BUTTS, SCHOOL STREET 



A WORD 

To the glancing Reader, if he will just stop 
a moment and see what it is. 

This little volume was written in the hope 
that it would be a trifling aid to that improve- 
ment which is going on in respect to common 
schools. It was also intended to present a 
pleasant picture of some peculiarities which 
have prevailed in our country, but are now 
passing away, 

It is trusted that no one who has kept,* 
or is keeping a district school after the old 
fashion, will be offended at the slight degree 
of satire he will meet with here. Any one 
of due benevolence is willing to be laughed 
at, and even to join in the laugh against him- 
self, if it will but hasten the tardy steps of 
improvement. Indeed there are quite a num- 
ber who have reason to believe that the au- 
thor has here sketched some of his own 
school-keeping deficiencies. 

* Keep school is a very different thing from teach 
school, according to Mr Carter, in his Essays on Pop- 
ular Education, 



PREFACE. 



It may be reasonably anticipated that the 
young will be the most numerous readers of 
these pages. Some scenes have been de- 
scribed, the sports of the school-going season 
for instance, with a special view to their en- 
tertainment. It is trusted however that the 
older may not find it unpleasant to recall the 
pastimes of their early years. 

JNow and then a word has been used which 
some young readers may not understand. In 
this case they are entreated to seek a diction- 
ary and find out its meaning. They may be 
assured that the time spent in this way will 
not be lost. The definition thus acquired 
may be of use to them the very next book 
they shall take up ; or at least in the course 
of the much reading their future leisure will 
allow them to enjoy. 

The Reader shall no longer be detained 
from the experience of a supposed school- 
boy ; if true to nature, no matter whether it 
really be, or be not that of the 

Author. 






{ 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
The Old School House • 1 

CHAPTER II. 

First Summer at School — Mary Smith . 5 

CHAPTER III. 
The Spelling Book .... 11 

CHAPTER IV. 
First Winter at School .... 15 

CHAPTER V. 

Second Summer — Mary Smith again . 21 

CHAPTER VI. 

Third Summer — Mehitabel Holt and other 
Instructresses ... 24 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

w 

CHAPTER VII. 

Little Books presented the Last Day of the 

School ...... 29 

CHAPTER VIIL 

Grammar- \ ou \g 1 g Ace idence— Mur- 
ray-^ Parsing — Pope's , Essay . . 35 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Particular Master — Various Methods of 

Punishment 42 

CHAPTER X. 

How they used to Read in the Old School 

House in District No. 5. • • .47 

CHAPTER XL 

How they used to Spell . . . .56 

CHAPTER XII. 

Mr Spoutsound, the Speaking Master — The 

Exhibition ... . . . 66 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Learning to Write . ' . . .78 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Seventh Winter, but not much about it. 
— Eighth Winter — Mr Johnson — Good 
Orders and but little Punishing — A Sto- 
ry about Punishing — Ninth Winter . 88 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER XV. 
Going out— Making Bows — Boys coming in 

—Girls going out and coming in . .94 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Noon — Noise and Dinner — Sports at School 
— Coasting — Snow-balling — A certain 
memorable Snow-ball Battle . , 101 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Arithmetic— commencement— progress—Late 
Improvement in the Art of Teaching it 111 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Augustus Starr, the Privateer who turned 
Pedagogue — His new crew Mutiny, and 
perform a Singular Exploit . . 116 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Eleventh winter — Mr Silverson, our first 
Teacher from College — His blunder at 
meeting on the Sabbath — His Character 
as a Schoolmaster .... 123 

CHAPTER XX. 
A College Master again — His Character in 
school and out — Our first attempts at 
Composition — Brief Sketch of another 
Teacher ..... 133 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

The Examination at the closing of the 

School ...... 141 

CHAPTER XXII. 

The old School House again— Its appearance 
the last winter — Why so long occupied 
-—A new one at last .... 149 



4 



THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 
AS IT WAS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THS OLD SCHOOL HOUSE. 

The Old School-house, as it used to be call- 
ed, how distinctly it rises to existence anew 
before the eye of my mind. Here was kept 
the District School as it was. This was the 
seat of my rustic Alma Mater, to borrow a 
phrase from collegiate and classic use. It is 
now no more ; and those of similar construc- 
tion are passing away never to be patterned 
again. It may be well, therefore, to describe 
the edifice wherein, and whereabout, occur- 
red many of the scenes about to be recorded. 
I would have future generations acquainted 
with the accommodations, or rather dis-ac- 
commodations of their predecessors. 

The Old School-house in District No. 5, 
stood on the top of a very high hill, on the 



2 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

north side of what was called the county road. 
The house of Capt. Clark, about ten rods off, 
was the only human dwelling within a quarter 
of a mile. The reason why this seminary of 
letters was perched so high in the air, and so 
far from the homes of those who resorted to 
it, was this. Here was the centre of the dis- 
trict, as near as surveyor's chain could desig- 
nate. The people east would not permit the 
building to be carried one rod further west, 
and those of the opposite quarter were as ob- 
stinate on their side. So here it was placed, 
and this continued to be literally the hill of 
science to generation after generation of learn- 
ers for fifty years. 

The edifice was set half in Capt. Clark's 
field, and half in the road. The wood-pile 
lay in the corner made by the east end and 
the stone wall. The best roof it ever had over 
it was the changeful sky, which was a little 
too leaky to keep the fuel at all times fit for 
combustion, without a great deal of puffing 
and smoke. The door step was a broad un- 
hewn rock, brought from the neighboring pas- 
ture. It had not a flat and even surface, but 
was considerably sloping from the door to the 
road, so that in icy times the scholars in pass- 
ing out, used to snatch from the scant decliv- 



AS IT WAS. «S 

ity the transitory pleasure of a slide. But look 
out for a slip-up, ye careless, for many a time 
have I seen urchin's head where his feet were 
but a second before. And once the most lof- 
ty and perpendicular pedagogue I ever knew, 
became suddenly horizontalized in his egress. 
But we have lingered round this door-step 
long enough. Before we cross it, however, let 
us just glance at the outer side of the struct- 
ure. It was never painted by man, but the 
clouds of many years had stained it with their 
own dark hue. The nails were starting from 
their fastness, and fellow-clapboards were 
becoming less closely and warmly intimate. 
There were six windows, which here and 
there stopped and distorted the passage of 
light by fractures, patches, and seams of 
putty. There were shutters of board, like 
those of a store, which were of no kind of 
use excepting to keep the windows from harm 
in vacations, when they were the least liable 
to harm. They might have been convenient 
screens against the summer sun, were it not 
that their shade was inconvenient darkness. 
Some of these from loss of buttons were fas- 
tened back by poles, which were occasional- 
ly thrown down in the heedlessness of play, 
and not replaced till repeated slams had bro- 



4 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

ken a pane of glass, or the patience of the 
teacher. To crown this description of exter- 
nals, I must say a word about the roof. The 
shingles had been battered apart by a thou- 
sand rains. And excepting where the most 
defective had been exchanged for new ones, 
they were dingy with the mold and moss of 
time. The bricks of the chimney-top were 
losing their cement, and looked as if some 
high wind might hurl them from their smoky 
vocation. 

We will now go inside. First, there is an 
entry which the district were sometimes prov- 
ident enough to store with dry pine wood as an 
antagonist to the greenness and wetness of 
the other fuel. A door on the left admits us 
to the school room. Here is a space about 
twenty feet long and ten wide, the reading 
and spelling parade. At the south end of it, 
at the left as you enter, was one seat and 
writing bench, making a right angle with the 
rest of the seats. This was occupied in the 
winter by two of the oldest males in the school. 
At the opposite end was the magisterial desk 
raised upon a platform a foot from the floor. 
The fire-place was on the right, half way 
between the door of entrance and another 
door leading into a dark closet where the girls 



AS IT WAS. O 

put their outside garments and their dinner 
baskets. This also served as a fearful dun- 
geon for the immuring of offenders. Directly 
opposite the fire-place was an aisle two feet 
and a half wide, running up an inclined floor 
to the opposite side of the room. On each 
side of this, were five or six long seats and 
writing benches for the accommodation of 
the school at their studies. In front of these , 
next to the spelling floor, were low, narrow 
seats for abecedarians and others near that 
rank. In general, the older the scholar the 
further from the front was his location. The 
windows behind the back seat were so low 
that the traveller could generally catch the 
stealthy glance of curiosity as he passed. 
Such was the Old School-house at the time I 
first entered it. Its subsequent condition and 
many other inconveniencies will be noticed 
hereafter. 



CHAPTER II. 

FIRST SUMMER AT SCHOOL — MARY SMITH. 

I was three years and a half old when I 
first entered the Old School-house as an abe- 
cedarian. I ought perhaps to have set foot on 



b THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

the first step of learning's ladder before this, 
but I had no elder brother or sister to lead 
me to school a mile off ; and it never occurred 
to my good parents, that they could teach me 
even the alphabet. Or perhaps they could 
not afford the time, or muster the patience for 
the tedious process. I had, however, learned 
the name of capital A, because it stood at the 
head of the, column, and was the similitude of 
a harrow frame. Of O, also, from its resem- 
blance to a hoop. Its sonorous name more- 
over was a frequent passenger through my 
mouth after I had begun to articulate, its am- 
ple sound being the most natural medium by 
which man born unto trouble signifies the 
pains of his lot. X too, was familiar, as it 
seemed so like the end of the old saw-horse that 
stood in the wood-shed. Further than this my 
alphabetical lore did not extend, according to 
present recollection. 

I shall never forget my first day of scholar- 
ship, as it was the most important era which had 
yet occurred to my experience. Behold me on 
the eventful morning of the first Monday in 
June arrayed in my new jacket and trowsers, 
into which my importance had been shoved for 
the first time in my life. This change in my 
costume had been deferred till this day that I 



AS IT WAS. 7 

might be nice and clean to go to school. Then 
my Sunday hat, (not of soft drab-colored fur, 
ye city urchins, but of coarse and hard sheep's 
wool,) my Sunday hat adorning my head for 
the first time, in common week-day use ; for 
my other had been crushed, torn and soiled 
out of the seemliness, and almost out of the 
form of a hat. My little new basket too, 
bought expressly for the purpose, was laden 
with 'lection-cake and cheese for my dinner, 
and slung upon my arm. An old Perry's 
spelling-book, that our boy Ben used at the 
winter school, completed my 'equipment. 

Mary Smith was my first teacher, and the 
dearest to my heart I ever had. She was a 
niece of Mrs Carter, who lived in the nearest 
house on the way to school. She had visited 
her aunt the winter before, and her uncle 
being chosen committee for the school at the 
town-meeting in the spring, sent immediately 
to her home in Connecticut and engaged her 
to teach the summer school. During the few 
days she spent at his house she had shown 
herself peculiarly qualified to interest and gain 
the love of children. Some of the neighbors 
too, who had dropped in while she was there, 
were much pleased with her appearance. She 
had taught one season in her native state, and 



8 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

that she succeeded well Mr Carter could not 
doubt. He preferred her, therefore, to hun- 
dreds near by, and for once the partiality of 
the relative proved profitable to the district. 

Now Mary Smith was to board at her 
uncle's. This was deemed a fortunate cir- 
cumstance on my account, as she would take 
that care of me on the way which was needful 
to my inexperienced childhood. My mother 
led me to Mr Carter's to commit me to my 
guardian and instructor for the summer. I 
entertained the most extravagant ideas of the 
dignity of the school-keeping vocation, and it 
was with trembling reluctance that I drew 
near the presence of so lovely a creature as 
they told me Mary Smith was. But she so 
gently took my quivering little hand, and so 
tenderly stooped and kissed my cheek, and 
said such soothing and winning words, that 
my timidity was gone at once. 

She used to lead me to school by the hand, 
while John and Sarah Carter, gamboled on, 
unless I chose to gambol with them ; but the 
first day at least, I kept by her side. All her 
demeanor toward me, and indeed toward us 
all, was of a piece with her first introduction. 
She called me to her to read, not with a look 
and voice as if she were doing a duty she dis- 



AS IT WAS. 9 

liked, and was determined I should do mine 
too, like it or not, as is often the manner of 
teachers; but with a cheerful smile and a 
softening eye, as if she were at a pastime, and 
wished me to partake of it. 

My first business was to master the ABC, 
and no small achievement it was ; for many a 
little learner waddles to school through the 
summer, and wallows to the same through the 
winter, before he accomplishes it, if he hap- 
pens to be taught in the manner of former 
times. This might have been my lot, had it 
not been for Mary Smith. Few of the better 
methods of teaching which now make the road 
to knowledge so much more easy and pleas- 
ant, had then found their way out of, or into 
the brain of the pedagogical vocation. Mary 
went on in the old way indeed, but the whole 
exercise was done with such sweetness on her 
part, that the dilatory, and usually unpleasant 
task, was to me a pleasure, and consumed 
not so much precious time as it generally does 
in the case of heads as stupid as mine. By 
the close of that summer the alphabet was 
securely my own. That hard, and to me un- 
meaning string of sights and sounds, were 
bound forever to my memory by the ties crea- 
ted by gentle tones and looks. 



]0 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

That hardest of all tasks, sitting becoming- 
ly still, was rendered easier by her goodness. 
When I grew restless and turned from side 
to side, and changed from posture to posture, 
in search of relief from my uncomfortableness, 
she spoke words of sympathy rather than re- 
proof. Thus I was won to be as quiet as I 
could. When I grew drowsy and needed but 
a comfortable position to drop into sleep and 
forgetfulness of the weary hours, she would 
gently lay me at length on my seat and leave 
me just falling to slumber, with her sweet 
smile the last thing beheld or remembered. 

Thus wore away my first summer at the dis- 
trict school. As I look back on it, faintly trac- 
ed on memory, it seems like a beautiful dream, 
the images of which are all softness and peace. 
I recollect that when the last day came, it was 
not one of light-hearted joy, it was one of 
sadness, and it closed in tears. I was now 
obliged to stay at home in solitude, for the 
want of play-mates, and in weariness of the 
passing time, for the want of something to do, 
for there was no particular pleasure in saying 
ABC, all alone, with no Mary Smith's 
voice and looks for an accompaniment. 



AS IT WAS. 11 

CHAPTER III. 

THE SPELLING-BOOK. 

As the spelling book was the first manual 
of instruction used in school, and kept in our 
hands for many years, I think it worthy of a 
separate chapter in these annals of the times 
that are past. The spelling-book used in our 
school from time immemorial, immemorial at 
least to the generation of learners to which I 
belonged, was thus entitled : " The Only 
Sure Guide to the English Tongue, by Wil- 
liam Perry, Lecturer of the English language 
in the Academy of Edinburgh, and author of 
several valuable school books." What a mag- 
nificent title ! To what an enviable superior- 
ity had its author arrived. The Only Sure, 
Guide ! Of course the book must be as infalli- 
ble as the catholic creed, and its author the 
very Pope of the jurisdiction of letters. 

But the contents of the volume manifested 
most clearly the pontifical character of the 
illustrious man ; for from the beginning to the 
end thereof, faith and memory were all that 
was demanded of the novice. The under- 
standing was no more called on than that of 
the devotee at his Latin mass-book. But let 



12 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

us enter on particulars. In the first place 
there was a frontispiece. We little folks how- 
ever, did not then know that the great picture 
facing the title-page was so denominated. 
This frontispiece consisted of two parts. In 
the first place there was the representation of a 
tree laden with fruit of the largest description. 
It was intended, I presume, as a striking and 
alluring emblem of the general subject, the par- 
ticular branches, and the rich fruits of educa- 
tion. But the figurative meaning was above 
my apprehension, and no one took the trouble 
to explain it to me. I supposed nothing but 
the picture of a luxuriant apple tree, and it 
always made me think of that good tree in my 
father's orchard, so dear to my palate, the 
pumpkin sweeting. 

There ran a ladder from the ground up 
among the branches, which was designed to 
represent the ladder of learning, but of this I 
was ignorant. Little boys were ascending 
this in pursuit of the fruit that hung there so 
temptingly. Others were already up in the 
tree plucking the apples directly from their 
stems. While others were on the ground 
picking up those that had dropped in their 
ripeness. At the very top of the tree with his 
head reared above all fruit or foliage was a 



AS IT WAS. 13 

bare headed lad with a book in his hand which 
he seemed intently studying. I supposed that 
he was a boy that loved his book better than 
apples, as all good boys should, one who in 
very childhood had trodden temptation under 
foot. But indeed it was only a boy who was 
gathering fruit from the topmost boughs, ac- 
cording to the figurative meaning, as the oth- 
ers were from those lower down. Or rather 
as he was portrayed, he seemed like one who 
had culled the fairest and highest growing 
apples, and was trying to find out from a book, 
where he should find a fresh and loftier tree 
upon which he might climb to a richer repast 
and a nobler distinction. 

This picture used to retain my eye longer 
than any other in the book. It was probably 
more agreeable on account of the other part 
of the frontispiece below it. This was the 
representation of a school at their studies, 
with the master at his desk. He was pictur- 
ed as an elderly man with an immense wig 
enveloping his head and bagging about his 
neck, and with a face that had a sort of half- 
way look, or rather perhaps a compound look 
made up of an expression of perplexity at a sen- 
tence in parsing, or a sum in arithmetic, and 
a frown at the playful urchins in the distant 
2 



14 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

seats. There could not have been a more 
capital device by which the pleasures of a 
free range and delicious eating, both so dear 
to the young, might be contrasted with stupi- 
fying confinement and longing palates in the 
presence of crabbed authority. Indeed the 
first thing the Only Sure Guide said to its pu- 
pil, was, play truant and be happy. And most 
of the subsequent contents were not of a char- 
acter to make the child forget this prelimina- 
ry advice. These contents I was going on to 
describe in detail, but on second thought I 
forbear, for fear that the description might be 
as tedious to my readers as the study of them 
was to me. Suffice it to say, there was talk 
about vowels and consonants, diphthongs and 
tripthongs, monosyllables and polysyllables, or- 
thography and punctuation, and even about 
geography, all which was about as intelligible 
to us who were obliged ..to commit it to mem- 
ory, year after year, as the fee-faw-fum, utter- 
ed by the giant in one of our story books. 

Perry's spelling-book, as it was in those 
days at least, is now out of use. It is no 
where to be found except in fragments in some 
dark corner of a country cupboard or garret. 
All vestiges of it will soon disappear forever. 
What will the rising generations do, into what 



AS IT WAS. 15 

wilds of barbarism will they wander, into 
what pits of ignorance fall, without the aid of 
the Only Sure Guide to the English Tongue. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FIRST WINTER AT SCHOOL. 

How I longed for the winter school to begin, 
to which I looked forward as a relief from my 
do-nothing days, and as a renewal in part at 
least of the soft and gliding pleasures of the past 
summer. But the schoolmaster, the thought 
of him was a fearful looking for of frowns and 
ferulings. Had I not heard our Ben tell of 
the direful punishments of the winter school; 
of the tingling hand, black and blue with 
twenty strokes, and "not to be closed for a 
fortnight from soreness? Did not the minis- 
ter and the schoolmaster of the preceding 
winter visit together at our house, one even- 
ing, and did I not think the schoolmaster far 
the more awful man of the two ? The minis- 
ter took me in his lap, gave me a kiss, and 
told me about his own little Charles at home, 
whom I must come and see ; and he set me 



16 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

down with the impression that he was not half 
so terrible as I had thought him. But the 
schoolmaster condescended to no words with 
me. He was as stiff and unstooping as the 
long kitchen fire shovel, and as solemn of face 
as a cloudy fast-day. A trifling incident hap- 
pened which increased my dread, and dark- 
ened my remembrance of him by another 
shade. I had slily crept to the table on which 
stood the hats of our visitors, and in childish 
curiosity had first got hold of a glove, then a 
letter which reposed in the crown of the mag- 
isterial head-covering. The owner's eye sud- 
denly caught me at the mischief, and he gave 
me a look and a shake of his upper extremity 
so full of ' let it alone or I will flog you ' in their 
meaning, that I was struck motionless for an 
hour with fright, and had hard work to dam up, 
with all the strength of my quivering lips, a 
choking baby cry. Thenceforth schoolmas- 
ters to my timid heart were of all men the 
most to be dreaded. 

The winter at length came, and the first day 
of the school was fixed and made known, and 
the longed for morning finally arrived. With 
hoping, yet fearing heart, I was led by Ben to 
school. But my fears respecting the teacher 
were not realized that winter. He had noth- 



AS IT WAS. 



17 



ing particularly remarkable about him to my lit- 
tle mind. He had his hands too full of the great 
things of the great scholars to take much notice 
•of me, excepting to hear me read my Abs four 
times a day. This exercise he went through 
like a great machine and I like a little one, so 
monotonous was the humdrum and regular the 
recurrence of ab, eb, ib, ob, ub, &c. from day to 
day, and week to week. To recur to the meta- 
phor of a ladder by which progress in learning 
is so often illustrated, I was all summer on the 
first round, as it were, lifting first one foot and 
then the other, still putting it down in the same 
place, without going any higher: and all winter 
while at school, I was as wearily tap-tapping it 
on the second step, with the additional draw- 
back of not having Mary Smith's sweet man- 
ners to win me up to the stand, help me cheer- 
fully through the task, and set me down again 
pleased with her if with nothing else. 

There was one circumstance however in 
the daily routine, which was a matterof some 
little excitement and pleasure. I was put in- 
to a class. Truly my littleness, feelingly, if 
not actually and visibly, enlarged itself, when 
I was called out with Sam Allen, Henry Green 
and Susan Clark, to take our stand on the 
floor as the sixth class. I marched up with 



18 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

the tread of a soldier, and thinks I who has 
a better right to be at the head than myself; 
so the head I took, as stiff and as straight as 
a cob. My voice too, if it lost none of its 
treble, was pitched a key louder, as a-b ab 
rang through the realm. And when we had 
finished I looked up among the large scholars, 
as I strutted to my seat, with the thought ' I 
am almost as big as you now,' purring out my 
tiny soul. Now moreover, I held the book in 
my own hand, and kept the place with my 
own finger, instead of standing like a very 
little boy, with my hands at my side, follow- 
ing with my eye the point of the mistress' 
scsisors. 

There was one terror at this winter school 
which I must not omit in this chronicle of my 
childhood. It arose from the circumstance of 
meeting so many faces which I had never seen 
before, or at least had never seen crowded to- 
gether in one body. All the great boys and 
girls who had been kept at home during the 
summer, now left axes and shovels, needles 
and spinning-wheels, and poured into the win- 
ter school. There they sat side by side, head 
after head, row above row. For this I did not 
care ; but every time the master spoke to me 
for any little misdemeanor, it seemed as if all 



AS IT WAS. 19 

turned their eyes on my timid self, and I felt 
petrified by the gaze. But this simultaneous 
and concentrated eye-shot was the most dis- 
tressing when I happened late, and was oblig- 
ed to go in after the school were all seated in 
front of my advance. Those forty — I should 
say eighty eyes, for most of them had two 
apiece — glancing up from their books as I 
opened the door, were as much of a terror to 
me as so many deadly gun-muzzles would be 
to a raw military recruit. I tottered into the 
room and toward my seat, with a palsying dis- 
may, as if every one was aiming an eye for 
my destruction. 

The severest duty I was ever called to per- 
form was sitting on that little front seat at 
my first winter school. My lesson in the Abs 
conveyed no ideas, excited no interest, and 
of course occupied but very little of my time. 
There was nothing before me on which to 
lean my head, or lay my arms, but my own 
knees. I could not lie down to drowse as 
in summer, for want of room on the crowded 
seat. How my limbs ached for the freedom 
and activity of play. It sometimes seemed 
as if a drubbing from the master, or a kick 
across the school-house would have been a 
pleasant relief. 



20 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

But these bonds upon my limbs were not 
all. I had trials by fire in addition. Every 
cold forenoon the old fire-place, wide and 
deep, was kept a roaring furnace of flame, for 
the benefit of blue noses, chattering jaws and 
aching toes, in the more distant regions. The 
end of my seat just opposite the chimney was 
oozy with melting pitch, and sometimes almost 
smoked with combustion. Judge then of 
what living flesh had to bear. It was a toil 
to exist. I truly ate the bread of instruction, 
or rather nibbled at the crust of it, in the 
sweat of my face. 

But the pleasures and the pains of this sea- 
son at school did not continue long. After a 
few weeks the storms and drifts of midwinter 
kept me mostly at home. Henry Allen was 
in the same predicament. As for Susan Clark, 
she did not go at all after the first three or four 
days. In consequence of the sudden change 
from roasting within doors to freezing with- 
out, she took a violent cold and was sick all 
winter 



AS IT WAS. 21 



CHAPTER V. 



SECOND SUMMER — MARY SMITH AGAIN. 

The next summer Mary Smith was the mis- 
tress again. She gave such admirable satis- 
faction, that there was but one unanimous 
wish that she should be reengaged. Unani- 
mous, I said, but it was not quite so, for Capt. 
Clark who lived close by the school-house, 
preferred somebody else, no matter whom, fit 
or not fit, who should board with him, as the 
teachers usually did. But Mary would board 
with her aunt Carter as before. Then Mr 
Patch's family grumbled not a little, and tried 
to find fault, for they wanted their Polly should 
keep the school and board at home, and help her 
mother night and morning, and save the pay 
for the board to boot. Otherwise Polly must 
go into a distant district, to less advantage to 
the family purse. Mrs Patch was heard to 
guess that ' Polly could keep as good a school as 
any body else. Heredication had cost enough 
any how. She had been to our school sum- 
mer after summer and winter after winter, 
ever since she was a little gal, and had then 
been to the 'cademy three months besides. 
She had moreover taught three summers al- 



22 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

ready, and was twenty one, whereas Mary 
Smith had taught but one, and was only nine- 
teen.' But the committee had not such con- 
fidence in the experienced Polly's qualifica- 
tions. All who had been to school with her 
knew that her head was dough, if ever head 
was. And all who had observed her school- 
keeping career (she never kept but once in the 
same place) pretty soon came to the same con- 
clusion, notwithstanding her loaf of brains 
had been three months in that intellectual 
oven called by her mother the 'cademy. 

So Mary Smith kept the school, and I had 
another delightful summer under her care and 
instruction. 1 was four years and a half old 
now, and had grown an inch. I was no tiny, 
whining, half scared baby, as in the first sum- 
mer. No indeed ; I had been to the winter 
school, had read in a class, and had stood up 
at the fire with the great boys, had seen a 
snow-ball fight, and had been accidentally hit 
once, by the icy missile of big-fisted Joe Swag- 
ger. 

I looked down upon two or three fresh, slob- 
bering abecedarians with a pride of superiori- 
ty, greater perhaps than I ever felt again. 
We read not in ab, eb, &c, but in words that 
meant something ; and before the close of the 






AS IT WAS. 23 

summer in what were called the ' Reading 
Lessons/ that is, little words arranged in little 
sentences. 

Mary was the same sweet angel this season 
as the last. I did not of course need her 
soothing and smiling assiduity as before, but 
still she was a mother to me in tenderness. 
She was forced to caution us younglings 
pretty often, yet it was done with such sweet- 
ness that a caution from us was as effectual 
as would be a frown and indeed a blow from 
many others. At least, so it was with me. 
She used to resort to various severities with the 
refractory and idle, and in one instance she 
used the ferule ; but we all knew, and the 
culprit knew, that it was well deserved. 

At the close of the school there was a deep- 
er sadness in our hearts than on the last sum- 
mer's closing day. She had told us that she 
should never be our teacher again, should prob- 
ably never meet many of us again in this world. 
She gave us much parting advice about loving 
and obeying God, and loving and doing good 
to every body. She shed tears as she talked 
to us, and that made our own flow still more. 
When we were dismissed the customary and 
giddy laugh was not heard. Many were sob- 
bing with grief, and even the least sensitive 



24 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

were softened and subdued to an unusual qui- 
etness. 

The last time I ever saw Mary was Sunday 
evening on my way home from meeting. As 
we passed Mr Carter's she came out to the- 
chaise where I sat between my parents, to- 
bid us good bye. O, that last kiss, that last 
smile, and those last tones. Never shall I for- 
get them so long as I have power to remem- 
ber, or capacity to love. The next morning: 
she left for her native town ; and before 
another summer she was married. As Mr 
Carter soon moved from our neighborhood, the 
dear instructress never visited it again. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THIRD SUMMER — MEHITABEL HOLT AND OTHER 

INSTRUCTRESSES. 

This summer a person named Mehitabel 
Holt was our teacher. It was with eager de- 
light that I set out for school on the first 
morning. The dull months that intervened 
between the winter school and the summer, 
had seemed longer than ever. I longed for 
the companionship and the sports of school. 



AS IT WAS. 25 

I had heard nothing about the mistress, ex-\ 
cepting that she was an experienced and ap- 
proved one. On my way the image of some- 
thing like Mary Smith arose to my imagina- 
tion ; a young lady with pleasant, face and 
voice, and a winning gentleness of manner. 
This was natural, for Mary was the only mis- 
tress I had ever been to, and in fact the only 
one I had ever seen, who made any impres- 
sion on my mind in her school-keeping ca- 
pacity. What then was my surprise when 
my eyes first fell on Mehitabel Holt. I shall 
not describe how nature had made her, or 
time had altered her. Engaging manners and 
loveliness of character do not depend on the 
freshness of youth, fineness of complexion, or 
symmetry of form. She was not lovely, her 
first appearance indicated this; for the dispo- 
sition will generally speak through the face. 
Subsequent experience proved Mehitabel to 
differ from the dear Mary as much as all that 
is sour does from the quintessence of sweet- 
ness. She had been well-looking, indeed 
rather beautiful once, I have heard ; but if so, 
the acidity of her temper had diffused itself 
through, and lamentably corroded this valued 
gift of nature. 

She kept order, for her punishments were 
3 



26 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

horrible, especially to us little ones. She 
dungeoned us in that windowless closet just 
for a whisper. She tied us to her chair-post 
for an hour, because sportive nature tempted 
our fingers and toes into something like play. 
If we were restless on our seats, wearied of 
our posture, fretted by the heat, or sick of 
the unintelligible lesson, a twist of the ear, or 
a snap on the head, from her thimbled finger, 
reminded us that sitting perfectly still, was the 
most important virtue of a little boy in school. 
Our forenoon and afternoon recess was allow- 
ed to be five minutes only ; and even during 
that time our voices must not rise above the 
tone of quiet conversation. That delightful 
exercise of juvenile lungs, hallooing, was a 
capital crime. Our noonings, in which we 
used formerly to rejoice in the utmost free- 
dom of legs and lungs, were now like the 
noonings of the sabbath, in the restraints im- 
posed upon us, As Mehitabel boarded at 
Capt. Clark's, any ranging in the fields, or 
raising of the voice was easily detected by 
her watchful senses. 

As the prevalent idea in those days respect- 
ing a good school was, that there should be 
no more sound and motion than was absolute- 
ly necessary, Mehitabel was, on the whole, 



AS IT WAS. 



27 



popular with the parents. She kept us still;. 
and forced us to get our lessons, and that 
was something uncommon in a mistress. So 
she was employed the next summer to keep 
our childhood in bondage. Had her strict 
rules been enforced by anything resembling 
Mary Smith's sweet and sympathetic disposi- 
tion and manners, they would have been en- 
durable. But as it was, our schooling those 
two summers was a pain to the body, a wea- 
riness to the mind, and a disgust to the heart. 
I shall not devote a separate chapter to all 
my summer teachers. What more I may 
have to say of them I shall put into this. They 
were none of them like Mehitabel in severity, 
nor all of them equal to her in usefulness, and 
none of them equal in any respect to Mary 
Smith. Some were very young, scarcely six- 
teen, and as unfit to manage that " harp of 
thousand strings," the human mind, as is the 
unskilled and changeful wind, to manage any 
musical instrument by which science and 
taste delights the ear. Some kept tolerable 
order, others made the attempt, but did not 
succeed, others did not even make the at- 
tempt. All would doubtless have done better 
had they been properly educated and disci- 
plined themselves. 



28 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

After I was ten years old I ceased to at- 
tend the summer school except in foul weath- 
er, as in fair I was wanted at home on the 
farm. These scattering days I and others of 
nearly the same age, were sent to school by 
our parents, in hopes that we should get at 
least a snatch of knowledge. But this rainy 
day schooling was nothing but vanity to us, 
and vexation of spirit to the mistress. We 
could read and spell better than the younger 
and regular scholars, and were puffed up 
with our own superiority. We showed our 
contempt for the mistress and her orders, by 
doing mischief ourselves, and leading others 
into temptation. 

If she had the boldness to apply the ferule, 
we laughed in her face, unless her blows were 
laid on with something like masculine strength. 
In case of such severity we waited for our re- 
venge till the close of the school for the day, 
when we took the liberty to let saucy words 
reach her ear, especially if the next day was 
likely to be fair, and we of course were not 
to reappear in her realm till foul weather 
again. 



s 



AS IT WAS. 29 



CHAPTER. VII. 

LITTLE BOOKS PRESENTED THE LAST DAY OF 
THE SCHOOL. 

There was one circumstance connected 
with the history of summer schools of so great 
importance to little folks that it must not be 
omitted. It was this. The mistress felt oblig- 
ed to give little, books to all her pupils on 
the closing day of her school. Otherwise she 
would be thought stingy, and half the good she 
had done during the summer would be can- 
celed by the omission of the expected dona- 
tions. If she had the least generosity, or 
hoped to be remembered with any respect 
and affection, she must devote a week's wa- 
ges, and perhaps more to the purchase of 
these little toy books. My first present, of 
course, was from Mary Smith. It was not a 
little book the first summer, but it was some- 
thing that pleased me more. 

The last day of the school had arrived. All, 
as I have somewhere said before, were sad 
that it was now to finish. My only solace 
was that I should now have a little book, for 
I was not unmoved in the general expectation 
that prevailed. After the reading and spell- 
3* 



30 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

ing and all the usual exercises of the school 
'were over, Mary took from her desk a pile 
of the glittering little things we were looking 
for. What beautiful covers, red, yellow, blue, 
green. O, not the first buds of spring, not 
the first rose of summer, not the rising moon, 
nor gorgeous rainbow, seemed so charming as 
that first pile of books now spread out on her 
lap, as she sat in her chair in front of the 
school. All eyes were now centered on the 
outspread treasures. Admiration and expecta- 
tion were depicted on every face. Pleasure 
glowed in every heart, for the worst as well 
as the best calculated with certainty on a 
present. What a beautifier of the counte- 
nance agreeable emotions are. The most 
ugly visaged were beautiful now with the ra- 
diance of keen anticipation. The scholars 
were called out one by one to receive the daz- 
zling gifts, beginning at the oldest. I being 
an abecedarian must wait till the last ; but as 
I knew that my turn would surely come in 
due order, I was tolerably patient. But 
what was my disappointment, my exceeding 
bitterness of grief when the last book on Ma- 
ry's lap was given away, and my name not 
yet, called. Every one present had received 
except myself and two others of the a b c 



AS IT WAS. 31 

rank. I felt the tears starting to my eyes, 
my lips were drawn to their closest pucker to 
hold in my emotions from audible outcry. I 
heard my fellow sufferer at my side draw long 
and heavy breaths, the usual preliminaries to 
the bursting out of grief. This feeling how- 
ever was but momentary, for Mary immedi- 
ately said Charles and Henry and Susan, you 
may now all come to me together, at the 
same time her hand was put into her work- 
bag. We were at her side in an instant, and 
in that time she held in her hand, what? Not 
three little picture books, but what was to us 
a surprising novelty, viz. three little birds 
wrought from sugar by the confectioner's art. 
I had never seen or heard of, or dreamed of 
such a thing. What a revulsion of delighted 
feeling now swelled my little bosom. ' If I 
should give you little books,' said Mary, f you 
could not read them at present, so I have got 
for you what you will like better perhaps, and 
there will be time enough for you to have 
books when you shall be able to read them. 
So take these little birds and see how long 
you can keep them.' We were perfect- 
ly satisfied, and even felt ourselves distin- 
guished above the rest. My bird was more to 
me than all the songsters in the air, although 



. 



32 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

it could not fly or sing or open its mouth. I 
kept it for years, until by accident it was 
crushed to pieces and was no longer a bird. 

But Susan Clark, I was provoked at her. 
Her bird was nothing to her but a piece of 
pepperminted sugar, and not a keepsake from 
Mary Smith. She had not left the school- 
house before she had nibbled off its bill. But 
her mother was always tickling her palate 
with sugar-plums, raisins, cookies, and such 
like, which the rest of us were not accustom- 
ed to, and she had no idea that the sweet 
little sugar bird was made, at least, was given 
for the sake of her heart rather than her 
palate. 

The next summer my present was the 
' Death and Burial of Cock Robbin.' This 
was from the dearly loved Mary too. I 
could then do something more than look at 
the pictures. I could read the tragic history 
which was told in verse below the pictured 
representations of the mournful drama. How 
I used to gaze and wonder at what I saw in 
that little book. Could it be that all this really 
took place ; that the sparrow really did do the 
murderous deed with his bow and his arrow ? 
I never knew before that birds had such 
things. Then there was the fish with his 



AS IT WAS. 33 

dish, the rook with his book, the owl with his 
shovel, &c. Yet if it were not all true why 
should it be so pictured and related in the 
book ? I had the impression that every thing 
that was printed in a book was surely true; 
and as no one thought to explain to me the na- 
ture of a fable, I went on puzzled and won- 
dering till progressive reason at length divined 
its meaning. But Cock Robin with its red 
cover and gilded edges, I have it now. It is 
the first little book I ever received, and it was 
from Mary Smith ; and as it is the only tan- 
gible memento of her goodness that I possess, 
I shall keep it as long as I can. 

I had a similar present each successive sea- 
son so long as 1 regularly attended the sum- 
mer school. What marvels did they contain ! 
How curiosity and wonder feasted on their 
contents ! They were mostly about giants, 
fairies, witches and ghosts. By this kind of 
reading superstition was trained up to a mon- 
strous growth ; and as courage could not 
thrive in its cold and gloomy shadow, it was 
a sickly shoot for years. Giants, fairies, 
witches and ghosts were ready to pounce up- 
on me from every dark corner in the day time 
and from all around in the night, if I happen- 
ed to be alone. I trembled to goto bed alone 



THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

for years ; and I was often almost paralyzed 
with horror when f chanced to wake in the 
stillness of midnight, and my ever busy fancy 
presented the grim and grinning images with 
which I supposed darkness to be peopled. 

I wish I had all those little books now. I 
would keep them as long as 1 live, and at 
death would bequeath them to the national 
Lyceum, or some other institution to be kept as 
a schoolmaster keeps a pupil's first writing, as 
a specimen, or a mark to show what improve- 
ment has been made. Indeed, if improvement 
has been made in any thing, it has been in re- 
spect to children's books. When I compare 
the world of fact in which the ( Little Philoso- 
phers ' of the present day live, observe and en- 
joy, with the visionary regions where I wan- 
dered, wondered, believed and trembled, I al- 
most wish to be a child again, to know the 
pleasure of having earliest curiosity fed with 
fact, instead of fiction and folly, and to know so 
much about the great world with so young a 
mind. 



AS IT WAS. 35 



CHAPTER VIII. 

GRAMMAR — YOUNG LADY'S ACCIDENCE — MUR- 
RAY— PARSING— POPE'S ESSAY. 

On my fifth summer at the age of seven and 
a half, I commenced the study of grammar. 
The book generally used in our school by be- 
ginners, was called the Young Lady's Acci- 
dence. I had the honor of a new one. The 
Young Lady's Accidence ! How often have 
I gazed on that last word and wondered what 
it meant. Even now I cannot define it, 
though of course, I have a guess at its mean- 
ing. Let me turn this very minute to that 
oracle of definitions, the venerable Webster. 
' A small book containing the rudiments of 
grammar.' That is it then. But what an in- 
telligible and appropriate term for a little 
child's book. The mysterious title however 
was most appropriate to the contents of the 
volume, for they were all mysterious, and that 
for years, to my poor understanding. 

Well, my first lesson was to get the Parts 
of Speech, as they are called. What a grand 
achievement to engrave on my memory these 
ten separate and strange words. With what 
ardor I took my lesson from the mistress and 



36 ^THE* DISTRICT SCHOOL 

trudged to my seat. It was a new study, and 
it was the first day of the school moreover, 
before the bashfulness occasioned by a strange 
teacher had subsided, and before the spirit 
of play had been excited. So there was 
nothing at the moment to divert me from the 
lofty enterprize. 

Reader, let your mind's eye peep into that 
old school-house. See that little boy in the 
second high seat from the front, in home-made 
and home-dyed sea-green cottoa jacket and 
trowsers, with a clean Monday morning collar 
turned out from his neck. His new book is 
before him on the bench, kept open by his 
left hand. His right supports his head on its 
palm, with the corresponding elbow pressed 
on the bench. His lips move, but at first 
very slowly. He goes over the whole lesson 
in a low whisper. He now looks off his book, 
and pronounces two or three of the first, ar- 
ticle, noun, pronoun, then just glances at the 
page, and goes on with two or three more. 
He at length repeats several words without 
looking. Finally he goes through the long 
catalogue with his eye fastened on vacancy* 
%At length how his lips flutter ; and you hear 
the parts of speech whizzing from his tongue 
like feathered arrows. A good simile that. 



AS IT WAS. 



Parts of speech — they are indeed arrows 
thought, though as yet armed with no point, 
and shot at no mark. 

There, the rigmarole is accomplished. He 
starts up and is at the mistress' side in a mo- 
ment. ' Will you hear my lesson, ma'am.' 
As she takes the book, he looks directly in 
her face, and repeats the aforementioned 
words loudly and distinctly, as if there were 
no fear of failure. He has got as far as the 
adverb, but now he hesitates, his eye drops, 
his lips are open ready for utterance, but the 
word does not come. He shuts them, he 
presses them hard together, he puts his finger 
to them, and there is a painful hiatus in his 
recitation, a disconnection, an attti to the very 
word he is after. Conjunction, says the mis- 
tress. The little hand leaves the lips at the 
same time that an involuntary 'O' bursts 
out from them. He lifts his head and his 
eye, and repeats with spirit the delinquent 
word, and goes on without hesitation to the 
end of the lesson. ' Very well,' says the 
teacher, or the hearer of the school, for she 
father listened to, than instructed her pupils. 
4 Get so far for the next lesson.' The child 
bows, whirls on his heel, and trips to his seat, 
mightily satisfied excepting with that one fail- 
4 



of 




THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

lure of memory, when that thundering word 
conjunction refused to come at his will. But 
that word he never forgot again. The failure 
fastened it in his memory forever. — This 
sea-green boy was myself, the present histori- 
an of the scene. 

My next lesson lagged a little ; my third 
seemed quite dull ; my fourth I was two days in 
getting. And at the end of a week I thought 
that I could get along through the world very 
well without grammar, as my grandfather had 
done before me. But my mistress did not agree 
with me, and I was forced to go on. I con- 
trived however to make easy work of the 
study. I got frequent but very short lessons, 
only a single sentence at a time. This was 
easily committed to memory, and would stay 
on it till I could run up and toss it off in reci- 
tation, after which it did not trouble me more. 
The recollection of it puts me in mind of a 
little boy lugging in wood, a stick at a time. 
My teacher was so ignorant of the philosophy 
of mind that she did not know that this was 
not as good a way as any. And indeed she 
praised me for my smartness. The conse- 
quence was, that after I had been through the 
book I could scarcely have repeated ten lines 
of it, excepting the very first and the very last 



AS IT WAS. 



lessons. Had it been ideas instead of words 
that had thus escaped from my mind, the case 
would have been different. As it was, the 
only matter of regret was that I had been 
forming a bad habit, and had imbibed an er- 
roneous notion, to wit, that lessons were to *be 
•learned simply to be recited. 

The next winter this Accidence was com- 
mitted, not to memory, but to oblivion ; for on 
presenting it to the master the first day of 
the school, he told me it was old fashioned 
and out of date, and I must have Murray's 
Abridgment. So Murrav was purchased, and 
I commenced the study of grammar again, 
excited by the novelty of a new, and -clean, and 
larger book. But this soon became oven more 
dull and dry than its predecessor, for it was 
more than twice the size, and the end of it was 
at the most discouraging distance of months if 
not of years. I got only half way through 
the verb this winter. The next summer I be- 
gan the book again, and arrived at the end of 
the account of the parts of speech. The 
winter after, I went over the same ground 
again, and got through the rules of syntax, 
and' felt that I had accomplished a great work. 
The next summer I reviewed the whole gram- 
mar, for the mistress thought it necessary to 



have 



THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 



ave its most practical and important parts 
firmly fixed in the memory, before attempting 
the higher exercises of the study. On the 
thi-rd winter I began to apply my supposed 
knowledge in the process of passing, as it 
was termed by the master. The very pro- 
nunciation of this word shows how little the 
teacher exercised the power of independent 
thought. He had been accustomed to hear 
parse called pass, and although the least re- 
flection would have told him it was not cor- 
rect, that reflection came not, and for years 
the grammarians of our district school passed. 
However, it was rightly so called. It ivas 
passing, as said exercise was performed ; 
passing over, by, around, away from the sci- 
ence of grammar, without coming near it, or at 
least without entering into it with much under- 
standing of its nature. Mode, tense, case, 
government and agreement were ever flying 
from our tongues, to be sure, but their mean- 
ing was as much a mystery as the hocus po- 
cus of a juggler. 

At first we parsed in simple prose, but soon 
entered on poetry. Poetry — a thing which, 
to our apprehension, differed from prose in 
this only, that each line began with a capital 
letter, and ended usually with a word sound- 



AS IT WAS, 41 

kig like another word at the end of the adjoiifc 
ing line. But unskilled as we all generally 
were in the art of parsing, some of us came to 
think ourselves wonderfully acute and dex- 
terous nevertheless. When we perceived the 
master himself to be in doubt and perplexity, 
then we felt ourselves on a level with him, 
and ventured to oppose our guess to his. And 
if he appeared a dunce extraordinary, as was 
sometimes the case, we used to put ourselves 
into the potential mood pretty often, as we 
knew that our teacher could never assume 
the imperative on this subject. 

The fact is, neither we nor the teacher en- 
tered into the writer's meaning. The gene- 
ral plan of the work was not surveyed, nor the 
particular sense of separate passages examin- 
ed. We could not do it perhaps, from the 
want of maturity of mind ; the teacher did 
not, because he had never been accustomed 
to anything of the kind in his own education. 
And it never occurred to him that he could 
deviate from the track, or improve upon the 
methods of those who taught him. Pope's 
Essay on Man was the parsing manual used 
by the most advanced. No wonder then, that 
pupil and pedagogue so often got bewildered 
and lost in a world of thought like this ; for 
4* 



42 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

.however well ordered a creation it might be, 
it was scarcely better than chaos to them. 

In closing, I ought to remark, that all our 
teachers were not thus ignorant of grammar ; 
although they did not perhaps take the best 
way to teach it. In speaking thus of this de- 
partment of study, and also of others, I have 
reference to the more general character of 
school-masters and schools. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE PARTICULAR MASTER — VARIOUS METHODS 
OF PUNISHMENT. 

I have given some account of my first win- 
ter at school. Of my second, third and fourth, 
I have nothing of importance to say. The 
routine was the same in each. The teachers 
were remarkable for nothing in particular ; if 
they were, I have too indistinct a remem- 
brance of their characters to portray them 
now. So I will pass them by, and describe 
the teacher of my fifth. 

He was called the particular master. The 
scholars in speaking of him would say ' he is 
so particular.' The first morning of the 



AS IT WAS. 43 

school he read to us a long list of regulations \, 
to be observed in school, and out. \ There 
are more rules than you could shake a stick 
at before your arm would ache,' said some 
one. * And if the master should shake a 
stick at every one who should disobey them, 
he would not find time to do much else/ 
said another. Indeed it proved to be so. 
Half the time was spent in calling up schol- 
ars for little misdemeanors, trying to make 
them confess their faults, and promise stricter 
obedience, or in devising punishments and 
inflicting them. Almost every method was 
tried that was ever suggested to the brain 
of pedagogue. Some were feruled on the 
hand, some were whipped with a rod on the 
back. Some were compelled to hold out at 
arm's length, the largest book that could be 
found, or a great leaden inkstand, till muscle 
and nerve, bone and marrow were tortured 
with the continued exertion. If the arm bent 
or inclined from the horizontal level, it was 
forced back again by a knock of the ruler on 
the elbow. I well recollect that one poor fel- 
low forgot his suffering by fainting quite away. 
This lingering punishment was more befiting 
the vengeance of a savage than the corrective 
efforts of a teacher of the young in civilized 
life. 




THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

He had recourse to another method almost, 
perhaps quite as barbarous. It was standing 
in a stooping posture, with the finger on the 
head of a nail in the floor. It was a posi- 
tion not particularly favorable to health of 
body, or soundness of mind ; the head being 
brought about as low as the knees, the blood 
rushing to it and pressing unnaturally on the 
veins, causing a dull pain, and a staggering 
dizziness. That man's judgment, or mercy, 
must have been topsy turvy also, who first set 
the example of such an infliction on those 
whose progress in knowledge depended some- 
what on their being kept right end upward. 

The above punishments were sometimes 
rendered doubly painful by their taking place 
directly in front of the enormous fire, so that 
the pitiable culprit was roasted as well as 
racked. Another mode of punishment--* an 
anti-whispering process, was setting the jaws 
at a painful distance apart, by inserting a chip 
perpendicularly between the teeth. Then 
we occasionally had our hair pulled, our noses 
tweaked, our ears pinched and boxed, or snap- 
ped perhaps with India rubber — this last the 
perfection of ear-tingling operations. There 
were minor penalties moreover for minor 
faults. The uneasy urchins were clapped 



AS IT WAS. 



into the closet, thrust under the desk, or perch-" 
ed on its top. Boys were made to sit in the 
girls' seats amusing the school with their 
grinning awkwardness. And girls were oblig- 
ed to sit on the masculine side of the aisle 
with crimsoning necks, and faces buried in 
their aprons. 

But I have dwelt long enough on the vari- 
ous penalties of the numerous violations of 
master Particular's many orders. After all, 
he did not keep an orderly school. The. 
cause of the mischief was, he was variable. 
He wanted that persevering firmness and uni- 
formity which alone can insure success. He 
had so many regulations that he could not 
stop at all times to notice the transgressions of 
them. The scholars not knowing with cer- 
tainty what to expect dared to run the risk of 
disobedience. The consequence of this pro- 
cedure on the part of the ruler and the ruled 
was, that the school became uncommonly ri- 
otous before the close^of the season. The 
larger scholars soon broke over all restraint, 
but the little ones were narrowly watched and 
restricted somewhat longer. But these grad- 
ually grew unmindful of the unstable author- 
ity, and finally contemned it with almost inso- 
lent effrontery, unless the master's temper- 






- 



THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 
f 

kindled eye was fixed directly and menacing- 
ly upon them. Thus the many regulations 
were like so many cobwebs, through which 
the great flies would break at once, and so 
tear and disorder the net that it would not 
hold even the little ones, or at all answer the 
purpose for which it was spun. 

I would not have it understood that this 
master was singular in his punishments ; for 
such methods of correcting offenders have 
been in use time out of mind. He was dis- 
tinguished only for resorting to them more 
frequently than any other instructer within my 
own observation. The truth is, that it seem- 
ed to be the prevailing opinion among both 
teachers and parents, that boys and girls 
would play and be mischievous at any rate, 
and that consequently masters must punish 
in some way or other. It was a matter of 
course ; nothing better was expected. 






AS IT WAS. 47 



CHAPTER X. 

HOW THEY USED TO READ IN THE OLD SCHOOL 
HOUSE IN DISTRICT NO. 5. 

In this description of the District School as 
it was, that frequent and important exercise, 
Reading, must not be omitted — Reading as it 
was. Advance then ye readers of the Old 
School-house, and let us witness your perform- 
ances. 

We will suppose it the first day of the 
school. ' Come and read/ says the mistress 
to a little flaxen-headed creature of doubtful 
gender, for the child is in petticoats and sits 
on the female side as close as possible to a 
guardian sister. But then those coarser fea- 
tures, tanned complexion and close-clipped 
hair, with other minutiae of aspect, are some- 
what contradictory to the feminine dress. 
' Come and read.' It is the first time that this 
he-or-she was ever inside of a school-house and 
in the presence of a school*ma'am according 
to recollection, and the order is heard with 
shrinking timidity. But the sister whispers 
an encouraging word and helps ' tot ' down 
from the seat, who creeps out into the aisle 
and hesitates along down to the teacher bit- 



48 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

ing his fingers, or scratching his head, per- 
haps both, to relieve the embarrassment of the 
novel situation. '• What is your name, dear 1 ' 
* Tholomim Ichertka/i,' lisps the now discover- 
ed he, in a phlegm-choked voice scarce 
above a whisper. ' Put your hands down by 
your side Solomon and make a bow.' He 
obeys, if a short and hasty jerk of the head is 
a bow. The alphabetical page of the spell- 
ing-book is presented and he is asked, ' What's 
that?' But he cannot tell. He is but two 
years and a half old, and has been sent to 
school to relieve his mother from trouble 
rather than to learn. No one at home has 
yet shown or named a letter to him. He has 
never had even that celebrated character, 
round O, pointed out to his notice. It was an 
older beginner, most probably, who being 
asked a similar question about the first letter 
of the alphabet, replied, ' I know him by 
sight, but can't call him by name.' But 
our namesake of the Wise man, does not 
know the gentleman even by sight, nor any 
of his twentyfive companions. 

Solomon Richardson has at length said 
A, B, C for the first time in his life. He has 
read. ' That's a nice boy ; make another bow 
and go to your seat.' He gives another jerk 



AS IT WAS. 49 

of the head and whirls on his heel and trots 
back to his seat, meeting the congratulatory 
smile of his sister with a satisfied grin, which, 
put into lawguage would be, ' There, I've 
read, ha'n't I 1 ' 

The little chit, at first so timid and almost 
inaudible in enunciation, in a few days be- 
comes accustomed to the place and the exer- 
cise ; and in obedience to the * speak up loud, 
that's a good boy,' he soon pipes off A-er, 
B-er, C-er, &c, with afar-ringing shrillness, 
that vies even with Chanticleer himself. Sol- 
omon went all the pleasant days of the first 
summer, and nearly every day of the next, 
before he knew all his letters by sight or could 
call them by name. Strange that it should 
take so long to become acquainted with these 
twentysix characters, when in a month's 
time the same child becomes familiar with 
the forms and the names of hundreds of ob- 
jects in nature around, or in use about his fa- 
ther's house, shop or farm ! Not so very strange 
neither, if we only reflect a moment. Take 
a child into a party of twentysix persons, all 
strangers, and lead him from one to the oth- 
er as fast as his little feet can patter, telling 
him their respective names, all in less than 
ten minutes ; do this four times a day even, 
5 



50 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

and you would not be surprised if he should 
be weeks at least, if not months, in learning to 
designate them all by their names. Is it any 
matter of surprise then that the child should 
be so long in becoming acquainted with the 
alphabetical party, when he is introduced to 
them precisely in the manner above describ- 
ed 1 Then these are not of different heights, 
complexions, dresses, motions, and tones of 
voice, as a living company have. But there 
they stand in an unalterable line, all in the 
same complexions and dress, all just so tall, 
just so motionless, and mute, and uninterest- 
ing, and of course the most unrememberable 
figures in the world. No wonder that some 
should go to school and ' sit on a bench 
and say A B C,' as a little girl said, for a 
whole year, and still find themselves strangers 
to some of the sable company even then. 
Our little reader is permitted at length to 
turn a leaf, and he finds himself in the re- 
gion of the Abs — an expanse of little sylla- 
bles making me, who am given to compari- 
sons, think of an extensive plain whereon 
there is no tree, or shrub, or plant, or any 
thing else inviting to the eye, and nothing 
but little stones, stones, stones, all about the 
same size. And what must the poor little 



AS IT WAS. 51 

learner do here? Why, he must hop from * 
cobble to cobble, if I may so call ab, eb, ib, 
'&c, as fast as he possibly can, naming each 
one, after the voice of the teacher as he hur- 
ries along. And this must be kept up until 
he can denominate each lifeless and uninter- 
esting object on the face of the desert. 

After more or less months the weary nov- 
ice ceases to be an Ab ite. He is next put 
into whole words of one syllable, arranged in 
columns. The first word we read in Perry 
that conveyed any thing like an idea, was 
the first one in the first column. The word 
Ache — ay, we did not easily forget what this 
meant when once informed, the correspond- 
ing idea, or rather feeling, was so often in 
our consciousness. Ache — a very appropri- 
ate term with which to begin a course of ed- 
ucation so abounding in pains of body and of 
mind. 

After five pages of this perpendicular read- 
ing, if I may so call it, we entered on the 
horizontal, that is, on words arranged in 
sentences and paragraphs. This was read- 
ing in good earnest, as grown up folks did, 
and something with which tiny childhood 
would be very naturally puffed up. ' Easy 
Lessons' was the title of about a dozen sepa- 



52 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

rnte chapters scattered at intervals among the 
numerous spelling columns, like brambly open- 
ings here and there amid the tall forest. Easy 
lessons, because they consisted mostly of little 
monosyllabic words easy to be pronounced. 
But they were not easy as it regards being 
understood. They were made up of abstract 
moral sentences presenting but a very faint 
meaning to the child, if any at all. Their 
particular application to his own conduct he 
would not perceive of course without help, 
and this it scarcely ever entered the head or 
the heart of the teacher to afford. 

In the course of summers, how many I for- 
get, we arrived at the most manly and digni- 
fied reading, the illustrious Perry had prepar- 
ed for us. It was entitled Moral Tales and 
Fables. In these latter, beasts and birds talk- 
ed like men; and strange sort of folks call- 
ed Jupiter, Mercury, and Juno, were pic- 
tured as sitting up in the clouds and talking 
with men and animals on earth, or as down 
among them doing very unearthly things. To 
quote language in common use, we kind o' be- 
lieved it all to be true, and yet we kiiid o f 
didn't. As for the Moral at the end, teachers 
never dreamed of attracting our attention to 
it. Indeed we had no other idea of all these 



AS IT WAS. 53 

Easy Lessons, Tales and Fables, than that 
they were to be syllabled from the tongue in 
the task of reading. That they were to sink 
into the heart and make us better in life, nev- 
er occurred to our simple understandings. 

Among all the rest were five pieces of 
poetry — charming stuff to read, the words 
would come along one after another so easily, 
and the lines would jingle so pleasantly to- 
gether at the end, tickling the ear like two 
beads in a rattle. O give us poetry to read, 
of all things, we thought. 

We generally passed directly from the spell- 
ing-book to the reading-book of the first class, 
although we were ranked the second class 
still. Or perhaps we took a book which had 
been formerly used by the first class, for a 
new reading book was generally introduced 
once in a few years in compliance with the 
earnest recommendation of the temporary 
teacher. While the first class were in Scott's 
Lessons, we of the second were pursuing their 
tracks, not altogether understanding^, through 
Adams' Understanding Reader. When a 
new master persuaded them into Murray, 
then we were admitted into Scott. 

The principal requisites in reading in these 
days, were to read fast, mind the f stops and 
5* 



54 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

marks,' and speak up loud. As for suiting 
the tone to the meaning, no such thing was 
dreamed of, in our school at least. As much 
emphasis was laid on an insignificant of, or 
and, as on the most important word in the 
piece. But no wonder we did not know how 
to vary our tones, for we did not always know 
the meaning of the words, or enter into the 
general spirit of the composition. This was 
very frequently, indeed almost always the 
case with the majority even of the first class. 
Parliamentary prose and Miltonic verse were 
just about as good as Greek for the purpose of 
modulating the voice according to meaning. 
It scarcely ever entered the heads of our 
teachers to question us about the ideas hidden 
in the great, long words and spacious senten- 
ces. It is possible that they did not always 
discover it themselves. ' Speak up there, and 
not read like a mouse in a cheese, and mind 
your stops,' — such were the principal direc- 
tions respecting the important art of elocution. 
Important it was most certainly considered, 
for each class must read twice in the fore- 
noon, and the same in the afternoon, from a 
quarter to a half an hour each time, accord- 
ing to the size of the class. Had they read 
but once or twice, and but little at a time, and 



1 



AS IT WAS. 55 

this with nice and very profitable attention to ; 
tone and sense, parents would have thought 
the master most miserably deficient in duty, 
und their children cheated out of their rights, 
.notwithstanding the time thus saved should be 
most assiduously devoted to other all-impor- 
tant branches of education. 

It ought not to be omitted that the Bible, 
particularly the New Testament was the read- 
ing twice a day generally, for all the classes 
adequate to words of more than one syllable. 
It was the only reading of several of the 
younger classes under some teachers. On 
this practice I shall make but a single remark. 
As far as my own experience and observation 
extended, reverence for the sacred volume was 
not deepened by this constant but exceeding- 
ly careless use. 

But what a long and perhaps tedious chap- 
ter on this subject of reading ! I had no idea 
of it when I began. Yet I have not put 
down the half that I could. These early im- 
pressions when once started from their recess- 
es, how they will teem forth. 



56 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 



CHAPTER XI. 

HOW THEY USED TO SPELL. 

There, the class have read ; but they have 
something else to do before they take their 
seats. ' Shut your books/ says he who has 
been hearing them read. What makes this 
row of little countenances brighten up so sud- 
denly, especially the upper end of it ? What 
wooden faces and leaden eyes, two minutes 
ago ! The reading was nothing to them — 
those Select sentences and Maxims in Perry's 
spelling-book which are tucked in between 
the fables. It is all as dull as a dirge to those 
life-loving boys and girls. They almost 
drowsed while they stood up in their places. 
But they are fully awake now. They are 
going to spell. But this in itself is the driest 
exercise to prepare for, and the driest to per- 
form, of the whole round. The child cares 
no more in his heart about the arrangement 
of vowels and consonants in the orthography 
of words, than he does how many chips lie 
one above another at the school-house wood- 
pile. But he does care, whether he is at the 
head or foot of his class ; whether the mon- 



AS IT WAS, 57 

& 

•ey dangles from his own neck or anotbers. 
This is the secret of the interest in spelling. 
Emulation is awakened, ambition roused. 
There is something like the tug of strength 
in the wrestle, something of the alternation of 
hope and fear in a game of chance. There has 
been a special preparation for the trial. Ob- 
serve this class any day, half an hour before 
they are called up to read. What a flitting 
from top to bottom of the spelling column ; 
and what a flutter of lips and hissing of utter- 
ance. Now the eye twinkles on the page to 
catch a word, and now it is fixed on the emp- 
ty air while the orthography is syllabled over 
and over again in mind, until at length it is 
syllabled on the memory. But the time of 
trial has come : they have only to read first. 
* The third class may come and read.' 'O 
dear, I havn't got my spelling lesson,' mutters 
Charlotte to herself. She has just begun the 
art of writing this winter, and she lingered a 
little too long at her hooks and trammels. 
The lesson seems to her to have as many 
again hard words in it as common. What a 
fluster she is in. She got up above George 
in the forenoon, and she would not get down 
again for any thing. She is as slow in com- 
ing from her seat as she possibly can be and 



58 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

keep moving. She makes a chink in her 
book with her finger, and every now and then 
during -the reading exercise, steals a glance at 
a difficult word. 

But the reading is over and what a bright- 
ening up, as was said before, with the excep- 
tion perhaps of two or three idle or stupid 
boys at that less honorable extremity of the 
class called the foot. That boy at the head — 
no, it was a boy, but Harriet has at length 
got above him, and when girls once get to 
the head, get them away from it if you can. 
Once put the ' pride of place ' into their 
hearts and how they will queen it. Then 
they are more sensitive, regarding any thing 
that might lower them in the eyes of oth- 
ers, and seem the least like disgrace. I 
have known a little girl to cry the half of one 
day, and look melancholy the whole of the 
next, on losing her place at the head. Girls 
are more likely to arrive at, and keep the first 
place in the class in consequence of a little 
more help from mother nature than boys get. 
I believe that they generally have a memory 
more fitted for catching and holding words 
and other signs addressed to the eye, than the 
other sex. That girl at the head has studied 
her spelling lesson until she is as confident of 



\ 



AS IT WAS. 59 

every word as the unerring Perry himself. 
She can spell every word in the column in 
the order it stands without the master's ' put- 
ting it out,' she has been over it so many 
times. Now Mr James get up again if you 
can, thinks Harriet. I pity you poor girl, for 
James has an ally that will blow over your 
proud castle in the air. Old Boreas, the king 
of the winds will order out a snow-storm by 
and bye to block up the roads so that none 
but booted and weather-proof boys can get to 
school, and you Miss, must lose a day or two, 
and then find yourself at the foot with those 
block-head boys who always abide there. But 
let it not be thought that all those foot lads 
are deficient in intellect. Look at them 
when the master's back is turned, and you will 
see mischievous ingenuity enough to convince 
you that they might surpass even James and 
Harriet, had some other faculties been called 
into exercise besides the mere memory of ver- 
balities. 

The most extraordinary spelling, and in- 
deed reading machine in our school was a boy 
whom I shall call Memorus Wordwell. He 
was mighty and wonderful in the acquisition 
and remembrance of words — of signs with- 
out the ideas signified. The alphabet he ac- 



60 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

quired at home before he was two years old. 
What exultation of parents, what exclamation 
from admiring visitors. * There was never 
any thing like it ! ' He had almost accom- 
plished his Abs before he was thought old 
enough for school. At an earlier age than 
usual however he was sent, and then he went 
from Ache to Abomination in half the summers 
and winters it took the rest of us to go over 
the same space. Astonishing how quickly he 
mastered column after column, section after 
section of obstinate orthographies. Those 
martial terms I have just used, together with 
our hero's celerity, put me in mind of Caesar. 
So I will quote him. Memorus might have 
said in respect to the hosts of the spelling- 
book, ' I came, I saw, I conquered.' He gen- 
erally stood at> the head of a class, each one 
of whom was two years his elder. Poor crea- 
tures, they studied hard some of them, but it 
did no good ; Memorus Wordwell was born to 
be above them, as some men are said to have 
been ' born to command.' At the public ex- 
amination of his first winter, the people of the 
district, and even the minister thought it mar- 
vellous that such monstrous great words should 
be mastered by ' such a leetle might of a 
boy ! ' Memorus was mighty also in saying 



AS IT WAS. 61 

those after spelling matters, the Key, the 
Abbreviations, the Punctuation, &c. These 
things were deemed of great account to be 
laid up in remembrance, although they were 
all very imperfectly understood, and some of 
them not understood at all 

Punctuation — how many hours, days and 
even weeks, have I tugged away to lift, as it 
were, to roll up into the store-house of my 
memory, the many long, heavy sentences 
comprehended under this title. Only survey 
(we use this word when speaking of consid- 
erable space and bulk,) only survey the first 
sentence, a transcript of which I will endeav- 
or to locate in these narrow bounds. 1 would 
have my readers of the rising generation know 
what mighty labors we little creatures of five, 
six and seven years old were set to perform. 

\ Punctuation is the art of pointing, or of 
dividing a discourse into periods by points, 
expressing the pauses to be made in the read- 
ing thereof, and regulating the cadence or el- 
evation of the voice.' 

There, I have labored weeks on that; for 
I always had that lamentable defect of mind 
not to be able to commit to memory what I 
did not understand. My teachers never aid- 
ed me with the least explanation of the above- 



UZ THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

copied sentence, nor of other reading of a 
similar character, which was likewise to be 
committed to memory. But this, and all was 
nothing, as it were, to Memorus Wordwell. 
He was a very Hercules in this wilderness of 
words. 

Master Wordwell was a remarkable reader 
too. He could rattle off a word as extensive 
as the name of a Russian noble, when he was 
but five years old, as easily as the schoolmas- 
ter himself. ' He can read in the hardest 
chapters of the Testament as fast agin as I 
can/ said his mother. ' I never did see noth- 
in beat it,' exclaimed his father, ' he speaks 
up as loud as a minister.' But I have sard 
enough about this prodigy. I have said thus 
much because that although he was thought so 
surpassingly bright, he was the most decided 
ninny in the school. The fact is, he did not 
know what the sounds he uttered meant. It 
never entered his head nor the heads of his pa- 
rents and most of his teachers, that words and 
sentences were written, and should be read only 
to be understood. He lost some of his reputa- 
tion however when he grew up toward twenty 
one, and it was found that numbers in more sen- 
ses than one, were far above him in ari them tic. 

One little anecdote about Memorus Word 



AS IT WAS. 63 

well before we let him go, and this long chap- 
ter shall be no longer. 

It happened one day that the ' cut and 
split ? for the fire fell short, and Jonas Patch 
was out wielding the axe in school time. He 
had been at work about half an hour, when 
Memorus, who was perceived to have less to 
do than the rest, was sent out to take his 
place. He was about ten years old and four 
years younger than Jonas. ' Memorus, you 
may go out and spell Jonas.' Our hero did 
not think of the Yankee sense in which the 
master used the word spell, indeed he had 
never attached but one meaning to it whenev- 
er it was used with reference to himself. He 
supposed the master was granting him a 
ride extraordinary on his favorite hobby. So 
he put his spelling-book under his arm and 
was out at the wood-pile with the speed of a 
boy rushing to play. 

' Ye got yer spellin lesson, Jonas ? ' was 
his first salutation. ' Haven't looked at it 
yet,' was the reply. ' I mean to cut up this 
plaguy great log, spellin or no spellin, before 
I go in. I had as lieve keep warm here chop- 
in wood, as freeze up there in that tarnal cold 
back seat.' ' Well, the master sent me out to 
hear you spell.' ' Did he 1 well, put out the 



64 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

words and I'll spell.' Memorus being so dis- 
tinguished a speller, Jonas did not doubt but 
that he was really sent out on this errand. So 
our deputy spelling-master mounted the top 
of the wood-pile, just in front of Jonas, to put 
out words to his temporary pupil who still kept 
on putting out chips. 

'Do you know where the lesson begins, Jo- 
nas 1 ' ■ No, 1 don't, but I spose I shall find 
out now.' ' Well, here 'tis.' (They both be- 
longed to the same class.) ' Spell A-bom- 
i-na-tion.' Jonas spells. A-b-o-m bom a-bom 
(in the mean time up goes the axe high in 
air,) i a-bomi (down it goes again chuck into 
the wood) n-a na a-bom-i-na (up it goes again) 
t-i-o-n tion, a-bom-i-na-tion, chuck the axe goes 
again, and at the same time out flies a furious 
chip and hits Memorus on the nose. At 
this moment the master appeared just at 
the corner of the school-house, with one foot 
still on the threshold. ' Jonas, why don't you 
come in 1 didn't I send Memorus out to spell 
you 1 ' Yes sir, and he has been spelling me, 
how could I come in if he spelt me here 1 
At this the master's eye caught Memorus 
perched upon the top stick, with his book 
open upon his lap, rubbing his nose, and just 
in the act of putting out the next word of 



AS IT WAS. 



65 



the column. Ac-com-mo-da-tion, pronounced 
Memorus in a broken but louder voice than 
before, for he caught a glimpse of the master, 
and he wished to let him know that he was 
doing his duty. This was too much for the 
master's gravity. He perceived the mistake, 
and without saying more, wheeled back into 
the school-room, almost bursting with the 
most tumultuous laugh he ever tried to sup- 
press. The scholars wondered at his looks 
and grinned in sympathy. But in a few min- 
utes Jonas came in, followed by Memorus with 
his spelling-book, who exclaimed, ■ I have 
heard him spell clean through the whole les- 
son, and he didn't spell hardly none of 'em 
right.' The master could hold in no longer, 
and the scholars perceived the blunder, and 
there was one simultaneous roar from peda- 
gogue and pupils; the scholars laughing twice 
as loud and uproariously in consequence of 
being permitted to laugh in school-time, and 
to do it with the accompaniment of the 
master. 



6* 



6Q THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 



CHAPTER XII. 



MR SPOUTSOUND, THE SPEAKING MASTER — THE 
EXHIBITION. 



Now comes winter the sixth of my district 
education. Our master was as insignificant 
a personage as is often met with beyond the 
age of twentyone. He ought to have been 
pedagogue in that land of littleness, Lilliput. 
Our great fellows of the back seat might have 
tossed him out of the window from the palm 
of the hand. But he possessed certain qual- 
ifications, and pursued such a course that he 
was permitted to retain the magisterial seat 
through his term, and indeed was quite popu- 
lar on the whole. 

He was as remarkable for the loudness 
and compass of his voice, as for the diminu- 
tiveness of his material dimensions. How 
such a body of sound could proceed from so 
bodiless an existence, was a marvel. It seem- 
ed as unnatural as that a tremendous thunder- 
clap should burst from a speck of cloud in the 
sky. He generally sat with the singers on 
the sabbath, and drowned the feebler voices 
with the inundation of his base. 

But it was not with his tuneful powers 



AS IT WAS. 



67 



alone that he ? astonished the natives.' He 
was imagined to possess great gifts of oratory 
likewise. ' What a pity it is that he had not 
been a minister,' it was said. It was by his 
endowments and taste in this respect that he 
made himself particularly memorable in our 
school. Mr Spoutsound had been one quar- 
ter to an academy where declamation was a 
weekly exercise. Finding in this ample scope 
for his vocal extraordinariness (a long-winded 
word, to be sure, but so appropriate) he be- 
came an enthusiastic votary to the Ciceronian 
art. The principal qualification of an orator 
in his view was height, depth and breadth of 
utterance — quantity of sound. Of course 
he fancied himself a very lion in oratory. In- 
deed as far as roaring would go he was a lion. 
This gentleman introduced declamation, or 
the speaking of pieces, as it was called, into 
our school. He considered ' speaking of the 
utmost consequence in this country, as any 
boy might be called to a seat in the legisla- 
ture perhaps, in the course of things.' It was 
a novelty to the scholars and they entered 
with their whole souls into the matter. It 
was a pleasant relief to the dullness of the 
old-fashioned routine. 

What a rummaging of books, pamphlets 



DO THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

and newspapers now took place, to find pie- 
ces to speak. The American Preceptor, 
the Columbian Orator, the Art of Reading, 
Webster's Third Part, and I know not how 
many other ancients were taken down from 
their dusty retirement at home for the sake of 
the specimens of eloquence they afforded. 
Those pieces were deemed best by us grand- 
sons of the Revolutionists which most abound- 
ed in those glorious words, Freedom, Lib- 
erty, Independence, and other spirit-kindling 
names and phrases, that might be mentioned. 
Another recommendation was high-flown lan- 
guage, and especially words that were long 
and sonorous, such as would roll thundering- 
ly from the tongue. For like our district pro- 
fessor we had the impression that noise was the 
most important quality in eloquence. The 
first, the second and the third requisite was 
the same ; it was noise, noise, noise. Action 
however, or gesticulation, was not omitted. 
This was considered the next qualification of 
the good orator. So there was the most ve- 
hement swinging of arms, shaking of fists 
and waving of palms. That occasional mo- 
tion of the limb and force of voice, called 
emphasis, was not a characteristic of our elo- 
cution, or rather it was all emphasis. Our 



AS IT WAS. 69 

utterance was something like the continuous 
roar of a swoln brook over a mill-dam, and 
our action like the unintermitted whirling and 
clapping of adjacent machinery. 

We tried our talent in the dramatic way like- 
wise. There were numerous extracts from 
dramatic compositions scattered through the 
various reading books we had mustered. These 
dialogistic performances were even more in- 
teresting than our speechifying in the sem- 
blance of lawyers and legislators. We more 
easily acquired an aptitude for this exercise, 
as it was somewhat like that every day affair, 
conversation. In this we were brought face 
to face, voice to voice, with each other, and 
our social sympathies were kindled into glow. 
We talked with, as well as at folks. Then 
the female portion of the school could take a 
part in the performance ; and who does not 
know that dialoguing, as well as dancing, has 
twice the zest with a female partner. The 
whole school with the exception of the very 
least perhaps, were engaged, indeed absorbed 
in this novel branch of education introduced 
by Mr Spoutsound. Some who had not got 
out of their Abs were taught by admiring 
fathers and mothers at home, little pieces by 
rote, and made to screech them out with a 



70 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

most ear-splitting execution. One lad in this 
way committed to memory that famous piece 
of self-puffery beginning with the lines — 

' You'd scarce expect one of my age, 
To speak in public on the stage.' 

Memorus Wordwell committed to memory 
and parroted forth that famous speech of Pitt, 
in which he so eloquently replies to the charge 
of being a young man. 

Cicero at Athens was not more assiduous 
in seeking the immense and the infinite in 
eloquence, than we were in seeking the great 
in speaking. Besides half an hour of daily 
school time set apart for the exercise undei 
the immediate direction and exemplification 
of the master, our noonings were devoted to 
the same, as far as the young's ruling passion, 
the love of play, would permit. And on the 
way to, and from school, the pleasure of dia- 
logue would compete with that of dousing 
each other into the snow. We even ' spoke ' 
while doing our night and morning work at 
home. A boy might be seen at the wood-pile 
hacking at a log and a dialogue by turns. Or 
perhaps after dispensing the fodder to the ten- 
ants of the barn, he would mount a half clear- 
ed scaffold and out-bellow the wondering 
beeves below. 



AS IT WAS. 71 

As the school drew towards a close, Mr 
Spoutsound proposed to have an exhibition in 
addition to the usual examination, on the 
last day, or rather the evening of it. Our or- 
atorical gifts and accomplishments must be 
publicly displayed ; which is next to publicly 
using them in the important affairs of the 
town, the state or the country. 

' An Exhibition — I want to know ! can it 
beV There had never been anything like 
it in the district before — nor indeed in the 
town. Such a thing had scarcely been heard 
of, except by some one whose uncle or cous- 
in had been to the academy, or to college. 
The people of the district were wide awake. 
The younger portion of them could hardly 
sleep nights. 

The scholars are requested to select the 
pieces they would prefer to speak, whether 
speeches or dialogues ; and to arrange among 
themselves who should be fellow partners in 
the dramatical performances. The master 
however retained the right of veto on their 
choice. Now what a rustle of leaves and 
flutter of lips in school hours, and noisier 
flapping of books and clatter of tongues at 
noon, in settling who shall have which, and 
who speak with whom. At length all is ais 



72 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

ranged, and mostly to the minds of all. Then 
for a week or two before the final consumma- 
tion of things eloquent, it was nothing but re- 
hearsal. No pains were spared by any one 
that he might be perfect in the recollection 
and flourishing off of his part. Dialogists 
were grouped together in every corner. There 
was a buzz in the back seat, a hum in the 
closet, a screech in the entry, and the very 
climax of vociferation in the spelling floor. 
Here the solos (if I may borrow a term from 
music) were rehearsed under the immediate 
criticism of Mr Spoutsound, whose chief de- 
light was in forensic and parliamentary elo- 
quence. The old school-house was a little 
Babel in the confusion of tongues. 

The expected day at length arrives. There 
must be of course the usual examination in 
the afternoon. But nobody attended this but 
the minister and the committee who engaged 
the master. The people of the district all in- 
tended to be at the exhibition in the evening, 
and examination was 'just nothing at all' 
with that in prospect. And in fact it was 
just nothing at all, for the ' ruling passion' 
had swallowed up very much of the time that 
should have been devoted to the really impor- 
tant branches of education. 



AS IT WAS. 



73 



After the finishing of the school, a stage 
was erected at the end of the spelling-floor 
next to the desk and the closet. It was hung 
round with checked bed-blankets in the sem- 
blance of theatrical curtains, to coneeal any 
preparations that might be necessary between 
the pieces. 

The exhibition was to commence at half 
past six. Before that time the old school- 
house was crowded to the utmost of its capac- 
ity for containing, by the people not only of 
our district, but of other parts of the town. 
The children were wedged into chinks too 
narrow for the admission of the grown up. 
Never were a multitude of living bodies more 
completely compressed and amalgamated into 
one continuous mass. 

On the front writing bench just before the 
stage and facing the audience sat the four 
first, and some of the most interesting per- 
formers on the occasion, viz. players on a 
clarionet, violin, bass-viol, and bassoon. But 
they of the bow were sorely troubled at first. 
Time and space go together with them, you 
know. They cannot keep the first without 
possessing the latter. As they sat, their semi- 
breves were all shortened into minims, indeed 
into crotchets, for lack of elbow room. At 
7 



74 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

length the violinist stood up straight on the writ- 
ing bench so as to have an unimpeded stretch 
in the empty air above the thicket of heads. 
His fellow sufferer then contrived to stand so 
that his long bow could sweep freely between 
the steady heads of two broad-shouldered men, 
out. of danger from joggling boys. This band 
discoursed what was to our ears most eloquent 
music, as a prelude to the musical eloquence 
which was to be the chief entertainment of 
the occasion. They played intermediately 
also, and gave the winding off nourish of 
sound. 

At forty minutes past six the curtain rose — 
that is, the bed-blankets were pulled aside. 
There stood Mr Spoutsound on the stage, in 
all the pomp possible to diminutiveness. He 
advanced two steps and bowed as profoundly 
from height to depth as his brevity of stature 
would admit. He then opened the exhibition 
by speaking a poetical piece called a Prologue 
which he found in one of the old reading 
books. As this was originally composed as 
an introduction to a stage performance, it was 
thought appropriate on this occasion. Mr 
Spoutsound now put forth in all the plenitude 
of his utterance. It seemed a vocal cataract, 
all torrent, thunder and froth. But it wanted 



AS IT WAS 75 

room — an abyss to emply into, and all it 
had was the remnant of space left in our little 
school-room. A few of the audience were 
overwhelmed with the pour, and rush, and 
roar of the pent up noise, and the rest, with 
admiration, yea astonishment, that the school- 
master ' could speak so.' 

He ceased ; it was all as still as if every 
other voice had died of envy. He bowed ; 
there was then a general breathing, as if the 
vocals were just coming to life again. He 
sat down on a chair placed on the stage, then 
there was one general buzz, above which 
arose here and there a living and loud voice. 
Above this soon arose the exaltation of the 
orator's favorite march ; for he deemed it 
proper that his own performance should be 
separated from those of his pupils by some 
length and loftiness of music. 

Now the exhibition commenced in good 
earnest. The dramatists dressed in costumes 
according to the character to be sustained, 
as far as all the old and odd dresses that 
could be mustered up, would enable them to 
do so. The district, and indeed the town had 
been ransacked for revolutionary coats and 
cocked-up hats, and other grand-fatherly and 
grand-motherly attire. The people present 



76 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

were quite as much amused with the specta- 
cle, as with the speaking. To see the old 
fashions on the young folks, and to see the 
young folks personating characters so entirely 
opposite to their own ; for instance, the slim 
pale-faced youth, by the aid of stuffing, look- 
ing and acting the fat old wine bibber ; the 
blooming girl of seventeen putting on the cap, 
the kerchief and the character of seventyfive, 
&/C, all this was ludicrously strange. Avery 
refined taste might have observed other things 
that were strangely ludicrous in the elocution 
and gesticulation of these disciples of Mr 
Spoutsound, but most of the company present 
were so fortunate as to perceive no bad taste 
to mar their enjoyment. 

The little boy of five spoke the little 
piece — 

'You'd scarce expect one of my age,&c.' 

I recollect another line of the piece which 
has become singularly verified in the history 
of the lad. It is this — 

' Tall oaks from little acorns grow.' 

Now this acorn of eloquence which sprout- 
ed forth so vigorously on this occasion, has at 
length grown into a mighty oak of oratory 
on his native hills. He has flourished in a 



AS IT WAS. 77 

Fourth of July oration before his fellow 
townsmen. 

Memorus Wordwell who at this time was six 
years old, yelped forth the aforementioned 
speech of Pitt. In the part replying to the 
taunt that the author of the speech was a 
young man, Memorus ' beat all.' Next to 
the master himself he excited the greatest ad- 
miration, and particularly in his father and 
mother. 

But this chapter must be ended, so we will 
skip to the end of this famous exhibition. 
At a quarter past ten the curtain dropped for 
the last time — that is, the bed-blankets were 
pulled down and put into the sleighs of their 
owners, to be carried home to be spread over 
the dreamers of acts instead of being hung 
before the actors of dreams. The little boys 
and girls did not get to bed till eleven o'clock 
that night, nor all of them to sleep till twelve. 
They were never more the pupils of Mr Spout- 
sound. He soon migrated to one of the states 
beyond the Alleghany. There he studied law 
not more than a year certainly, and was ad- 
mitted to the Bar. It is rumored that he soon 
spoke himself into the legislature, and as soon 
spoke himself out again. Whether he will 

speak himself into congress is a matter of ex=> 

7# 



78 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

ceeding doubt. I have nothing more to add 
respecting the speaking master, or the speak- 
ing, excepting that one shrewd old man was 
heard to say on leaving the school-house, ex- 
hibition night, " A great cry but little wool." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

LEARNING TO WRITE. 

The winter I was nine years old, I made 
another advance toward the top of the ladder, 
in the circumstance of learning to write. I 
desired and pleaded to commence the chiro- 
graphical art the summer, and indeed the 
winter before, for others of my own age were 
at it thus early. But my father said that my 
fingers were hardly stout enough to manage 
a quill from his geese, but that if I would put 
up with the quill of a hen, I might try. This 
pithy satire put an end to my teasing. 

Having previously had the promise of wri- 
ting this winter, I had made all (he necessary 
preparations, days before school was to begin. 
I had bought me a new bitch ruler, and had 
given a third of my wealth, four cents, for it. 



AS IT WAS. 79 

To this I had appended, by a well twisted 
flaxen string, a plummet of my own running, 
whittling and scraping. I had hunted up an 
old pewter inkstand which had come down 
from the ancestral eminence of my great grand- 
father for aught I know. And it bore many 
marks of a speedier and less honorable de- 
scent, to wit, from table or desk to the floor . 
I had succeeded in becoming the owner of a 
penknife, not that it was likely to be applied 
to its appropriate use that winter at least, for 
such beginners generally used the instrument 
to mar the pens they wrote in, rather than to 
make or mend those they wrote with. I had 
selected one of the fairest quills out of an 
enormous bunch. Half a quire of foolscap 
had been folded into the shape of a writing 
book, by the maternal hand, and covered 
with brown paper nearly as thick as a sheep- 
skin. 

Behold me now on the first Monday in De- 
cember starting for school, with my new and 
-clean writing book buttoned under my jacket, 
my inkstand in my pocket, a bundle of neces- 
sary books in one hand, and my ruler and 
swinging plummet in the other, which I flour- 
ished in the air and around my head till the 
sharpened lead made its first mark on my own 



SO THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

face. My long white-feathered goose-quill 
was twisted into my hat-band like a plumy 
badge of the distinction to which I had arrived, 
and the important enterprise before me. 

On arriving at the school-house I took a 
seat higher up and more honorable than the 
one I occupied the winter before. At the 
proper time my writing book, which, with my 
quill I had handed to the master on entering, 
was returned to me, with a copy set, and pa- 
per ruled and pen made. My copy was a 
single straight mark, at the first corner of my 
manuscript. A straight mark ! who could not 
make so simple a thing as that, thought I. 
I waited however to see how the boy next to 
me, a. beginner also, should succeed, as he had 
got ready a moment before me. Never shall 
I forget the first chirographical exploit of this 
youth. That inky image will never be eradi- 
cated from my memory so long as a single 
trace of early experience is left, on its tablet. 
The fact is, it was an era in my life, some- 
thing great was to be done, and my attention 
was intensely awake to whatever had a bear- 
ing on this new and important trial of my pow- 
ers. I looked to see a mark as straight as 
a ruler, having its four corners as distinctly 
defined as the angles of a parallelogram. 



% 



AS IT WAS. 81 

But, O me, what a spectacle ! What a shock- 
ing contrast to my anticipation. That mark 
had as many crooks as a ribbon in the wind, 
and nearer eight angles than four; and its 
two sides were nearly as rough and as notch- 
ed as a fine handsaw, and indeed the mark 
somewhat resembled it in width, for the fellow 
had laid in a store of ink sufficient to last the 
journey of the whole line. ' Shame on him,' 
said I internally, 'I can beatthat, I know.' 
I began by setting my pen firmly on the pa- 
per, and I brought a mark half way down, 
with rectilinear precision. But by this time 
my head began to swim, and my hand to trem- 
ble. I was as it were in vacancy, far below 
the upper ruling, and as far above the lower. 
My self-possession failed, my pen diverged to 
the right, then to the left, crooking all the re- 
mainder of its way, with as many zigzags as 
could well be in so short a distance. Mine 
was as sad a failure as my neighbour's. I 
covered it over with my fingers, and did not 
jog him with a ' see there,' as I had vainly an- 
ticipated. 

So much for pains taking, now for chance. 
By good luck the next effort was quite suc- 
cessful. I now dashed on for better or worse, 
till in one half hour I had covered the whole 



82 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

page with the standing, though seemingly fall- 
ing monuments of the chirographical wisdom 
of my teacher and skill of myself. In the af- 
ternoon a similar copy was set, and I dashed 
on again as if I had taken so much writing 
by the job, and my only object was to save 
time. Now and then there was quite a repu- 
table mark ; but alas for him whose perception 
of the beautiful was particularly delicate, 
should he get a glimpse of these sloughs of 
ink. 

The third morning my copy was the first 
element of the m and n, or what in burlesque 
is called a hook. On my fourth I had the last 
half of the same letters, or the trammel. And 
indeed they were the similitudes of hooks and 
trammels, forged in a country plenteous in iron, 
and by the youngest apprentice at the hammer 
and anvil. 

In this way I %ent through all the small 
letters, as they are called. First, the ele- 
ments, or constituent parts, then the whole 
character in which these parts were com- 
bined. 

Then I must learn to make the capitals 
before entering on joining hand. Four pages 
were devoted to these. Capital letters ! They 
were capital offences against all that is graceful, 



AS IT WAS. 



83 



indeed decent, yea tolerable, in that art which 
is so capable of beautiful forms and propor- 
tions. 

I came next to joining hand, about three 
weeks after my commencement. And joining 
hand indeed it was. It seemed as if my hooks 
and trammels were overheated in the forge, 
and were melted into each other, the shape- 
less masses so clung together at points where 
they ought to have been separate, so very far 
were they from all resemblance to conjoined 
yet distinct and well defined characters. 

Thus I went on, a perfect little prodigal in 
the expenditure of paper, ink, pens and time. 
The first winter I splashed two, and the next, 
three writing books with inky puddle, in learn- 
ing coarse hand. And after all I gained not 
much in penmanship, except a workmanlike 
assurance and celerity of execution such as is 
natural to an old hand at the business. 

The third winter I commenced small hand, 
or rather fine, as it is more technically de- 
nominated. Or rather a copy of half-way di- 
mensions that the change to fine running hand 
might not be too sudden. From this dwarfish 
coarse or giant fine hand, just as you please to 
call it, I slid down to the genuine epistolary 
and mercantile, with a capital at the head of 



84 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

the line as much out of proportion as a corpu- 
lent old captain marching in single file before 
a parade of little boys. 

Some of our teachers were accustomed to 
spend a few minutes forenoon and afternoon, 
in going round among the writers to see that 
they held the pen properly and took a de- 
cent degree of pains. But the majority of 
them, according to present recollections, never 
stirred from the desk to superintend this 
branch. There was something like an ex- 
cuse however for not visiting their pupils 
while at the pen. Sitting as they did in those 
long, narrow, rickety seats, one could hardly 
be got at without joggling two or three others, 
displacing a writing book, knocking over an 
inkstand, and making a deal of rustle, rattle 
and racket. 

Some of the teachers set the copies at home 
in the evening, but most set them in school. 
Six hours per day were all that custom re- 
quired of a teacher, of course half an hour at 
home spent in the matters of the school would 
have been time and labor not paid for, and 
a gratuity not particularly expected. On 
entering in the morning and looking for the 
master as the object at which to make the 
customary 6 manners ' we could perceive just 



AS IT WAS. 85 

the crown of his head beyond a huge stock 
of manuscripts, which together with his copy- 
setting attention, prevented the bowed and cour- 
tesied respects from his notice. A few of the 
most advanced in penmanship had copper- 
plate slips, as they were called, tucked into 
their manuscripts for the trial of their more 
skillful hands. Or if an ordinary learner had 
for once done extraordinarily well, he was per- 
mitted a slip as a mark of merit, and a circum- 
stance of encouragement. Sometimes when 
the master was pressed for time all the joining- 
handers were thus furnished. It was a pleas- 
ure to have copies of this sort, their polished 
shades, graceful curves and delicate hair lines 
were so like a picture for the eye to dwell 
upon. But when we set about the work of 
imitation discouragement took the place of 
pleasure. ' After all give us the master's 
hand ' we thought, ' we can come up to that 
now and then. ' We despaired of ever be- 
coming decent penmen with this copperplate 
perfection mocking our clumsy fingers. 

There was one item in penmanship which 
our teachers generally omitted altogether. It 
was the art of making and mending pens. 
I suffer, and others on my account suffer from 
this neglect even at this day. The untrace- 
8 



86 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

able { partridge tracks, ' as some one called 
them, with which I perplex my correspondents 
and am now about to provoke the printer, are 
chargeable to my ignorance of pen-making. It 
is a fact, however some acquaintances may 
doubt it, that I generally write very legibly, if 
not. gracefully, whenever I borrow, beg, or 
steal a pen. 

Let not the faithful WrifTord, should his eye 
chance to fall on this lament, think that I 
have forgotten his twelve lessons of one hour 
each, on twelve successive, cold November 
days, when I was just on the eve of com- 
mencing pedagogue for the first time; (for f 
too have kept a district school in a manner 
somewhat like as it was) I have not forgotten 
them. He did well for me. 'But alas, his 
tall form bent over my shoulder, his long flex- 
ile finger adjusted my pen, and his vigilant 
eye glanced his admonitions in vain. That 
thirteenth lesson which he added gratis, to 
teach us penmaking, I was so unfortunate as 
to lose. Lamentable to me and to many 
others, that 1 was kept away. 

I blush while I acknowledge it, but I have 
taught school, have taught penmanship, have 
made and mended a hundred pens a day, and 
all the time I knew not much more of the art 



AS IT WAS. 87 

of turning quill into pen, than"did the goose 
from whose wing it was plucked. But my 
manufactures were received by my pupils as 
good. Good of course they must be, for the 
master made them, and who should dare to 
question his competency ! If the instrument 
did not operate well, the fault must certainly 
be in the ringers that wielded, not those that 
wrought it. 

O ye Pedagogues whom I have here con- 
demned to ' everlasting fame,' taking it for 
granted that this record will be famous for- 
ever, be not too angry with my humble author- 
ship, for I, too, let it be repeated, have kept a 
district school as it was, as well as been to 
one. But brother Pedagogues of the past, I 
will tell you what I purpose to do, perhaps 
some of you will purpose to do so likewise. 
Should this exposure of our deficiencies 
meet with a tolerable sale, T purpose to em- 
ploy a teacher in the art of cutting, splitting, 
and shaving pen timber into the best possible 
fitness for chirographic use. It is my heart's 
hope, and it shall be my hand's care that he 
may not teach in vain. Then, if I cannot 
make amends to my cheated pupils, I trust 
that the wearied eyes and w r orn out patience 
*f former tracers of ' partridge tracks ' shall 



88 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

recover, to be thus wearied and worn out no 
more. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

SEVENTH WINTER, BUT NOT MUCH ABOUT IT. 
EIGHTH WINTER. AIR JOHNSON. GOOD ORDERS 
AND BUT LITTLE PUNISHING. A STORY ABOUT 
PUNISHING. NINTH WINTER. 

Of my seventh winter T have but little to say, 
for but little was done worthy of record here. 
We had an indolent master and an idle school. 
Some tried to kindle up the speaking spirit 
again, but the teacher had no taste that way. 
But there was dialoguing enough nevertheless 
— in that form called whispering. Our school 
was a theatre in earnest, for ' plays ' were 
going on all the time. It was ' acting' to 
the life, acting any-how rather than like schol- 
ars at their books. But let that, winter and 
its works, or rather want of works pass. Of 
the eighth I can say something worth notice 
I think. 

In consequence of the lax discipline of the 
two last winters the school had fallen into 
very idle and turbulent habits. 'A master 



AS IT WAS. 0\f 

that will keep order, a master that will keep 
order/ was the cry throughout the district. 
Accordingly such a one was sought, and for- 
tunately found. A certain Mr Johnson, who 
had taught in a neighbouring town was fa- 
mous for his strictness, and that without much 
punishing. He was obtained at a little higher 
price than usual, and was thought to be well 
worth the price. I will describe his person, 
and relate an incident as characteristic of the 
man. 

Mr Johnson was full six feet high, with the 
diameter of his chest and limbs in equal pro- 
portion. His face was long and as dusky as a 
^Spaniard's, and the dark was still darkened 
by the roots of an enormous beard. His 
eyes were black, and looked floggings and 
blood from out their cavernous sockets, 
which were overhung by eyebrows not unlike 
brush-heaps. His hair was black and curly, 
and extended down, and expanded on each 
side of his face in a pair of whiskers a free- 
booter might have envied. 

JHe possessed the longest, widest, and thick- 
est ruler 1 ever saw. This was seldom bran- 
dished in his hand, but generally lay in sight 
upon the desk. Although he was so famous 
for his orders in school, he scarcely ever had 
8* 



90 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

to use his punitive instrument. His look, 
bearing and voice were enough for the subjec- 
tion of the most riotous school. Never was our 
school so still and so studious as this winter. 
A circumstance occurred the very first day, 
which drove every thing like mischief in con- 
sternation from every scholar's heart. Abijah 
Wilkins had for years been called the worst 
boy in school. Masters could do nothing 
with him. He was surly, saucy, profane and 
truthless. Mr Patch took him from an alms- 
house when he was eight years old, which was 
eight years before the point of time now in view. 
In his family were mended neither his disposi- 
tion, his manners, nor even his clothes. He 
looked like a morose, unpitied pauper still. 
He had shaken his knurly and filthy fist in 
the very face and eyes of the last winter's 
teacher. Mr Johnson was told of this son of 
perdition before he began, and was pre- 
pared to take some efficient step at his first 
offence. 

Well, the afternoon of the first day, Abijah 
thrust a pin into a boy beside him, which 
made him suddenly cry out with the sharp 
pain. The sufferer was questioned, Abijah 
was accused, and found guilty. The mas- 
ter requested James Clark to go to his room 



AS IT WAS. 91 

and bring a rattan he would find there, as if 
the formidable ferule was unequal to the pres- 
ent exigency. James came with a rattan very 
long and very elastic, as if it had been select- 
ed from a thousand, not to walk with, but to 
w T hip. Then he ordered all the blinds next to 
the road to be closed. He then said, ' Abijah, 
come this way.' He came. 'The school 
may shut their books and suspend their stud- 
ies a few minutes. Abijah take off your frock, 
fold it up, lay it on the seat behind you.' Abi- 
jah obeyed these several commands with sul- 
len tardiness. Here, a boy up towards the 
back seat burst out with a sort of shuddering 
laugh produced by a nervous excitement he 
could not control. ' Silence,' said the mas- 
ter, with a thunder, and a stamp on the floor 
that made the house quake. All was as still as 
midnight. Not a foot moved, not a seat crack- 
ed, not a book rustled. The school seemed 
to be appalled. The expression of every coun- 
tenance was changed. Some were unnatu- 
rally pale, some flushed, and eighty distended 
and moistening eyes were fastened on the 
scene. The awful expectation was too much 
for one poor girl. ' May I go home,' she 
whined with an imploring and terrified look. 
A single cast from the countenance of authori- 



92 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

ty crushed the trembler down into her seat 
again. A tremulous sigh escaped from one 
of the larger girls, then all was breathlessly- 
still again. 'Take off your jacket also, Abi- 
jah. Fold it and lay it on your frock.' Mr 
Johnson then took his chair and set it away 
at the farthest distance the floor would permit, 
as if all the space that could be had would be 
necessary for the operations about to take 
place. He then took the rattan, and seemed 
to examine it closely, drew it through his 
hand, bent it almost double, laid it down again. 
He then took off his own coat, folded it up 
and laid it on the desk. Abijah's breast then 
heaved like a bellows, his limbs began to trem- 
ble, and his face was like a sheet. The mas- 
ter now took the rattan in his right hand, and 
the criminal by the collar with his left, his 
large knuckles pressing hard against the shoul- 
der of the boy. He raised the stick high 
over the shrinking back. Then O what a 
screech ! Had the rod fallen ? No, it still 
remained suspended in the air. ' O — I wont 
do so agin — I '11 never do so agin — O — 
O — don 't — I will be good — sartinly will.' 
The threatening instrument of pain was 
gently Aen from its elevation. The master 
spoke. ' You promise, do you ? ' ' Yis sir, 



AS IT WAS. 93 

— O, yis, sir.' The tight grasp was with- 
drawn from the collar. • Put on your frock 
and jacket and go to your seat. The rest of 
you may open your books again. ' The 
school breathed again. Paper rustled, feet 
were carefully moved, the seats slightly crack- 
ed, and all things went stilly on as before* 
Abijah kept his promise. He became an al- 
tered boy ; obedient, peaceable, studious. 
This long and slow process of preparing for 
the punishment was artfully designed by the 
master, gradually to work up the boy's terrors 
and agonizing expectations to the highest 
pitch, until he should yield like a babe to the 
intensity of his emotions. His stubborn na- 
ture, which had been like an oak on the hills 
which no storm could prostrate, was whittled 
away and demolished, as it were, sliver by 
sliver. 

Not Abijah Wilkins only, but the whole 
school were subdued to the most humble and 
habitual obedience by the scene I have de- 
scribed. The terror of it seemed to abide in 
their hearts. The school improved much this 
winter, that is, according to the ideas of im- 
provement then prevailing. Lessons were well 
gotten, and well said, although the whj and the 
wherefore of them were not asked or given. 



94 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

Mr Johnson was employed the next winter 
also, nnd it was the prevailing wish that he 
should be engaged for the third time, but he 
could not be obtained. His reputation as a 
teacher had secured for him a school at twen- 
ty dollars per month for the year round, in a 
distant village, so we were never more to 
sit ' as stiil as mice,' in his most magisteri- 
al presence. For years the saying in the dis- 
trict, in respect to him was, ' He was the best 
master I ever went to ; he kept such good 
order, and punished so little.' 



CHAPTER XV. 

GOING OUT — MAKING BOWS - BOYS COMING IN — 
GIRLS GOING OUT AND COMING IN. 

The young are proverbially ignorant of the 
value of time. There is one portion of it, 
however, which they well know how to appre- 
ciate. They feel it to be a wealth both to the 
body and the soul. Its few moments are tru- 
ly golden ones, forming a glittering spot amid 
the drossy dullness of in-school duration. I 
refer to the forenoon and afternoon recess for 
1 going out.' Consider that we came from all 



%i 



AS IT WAS. 95 

the freedom of the farm, where we had the 
sweep of acres — hills, valleys, woods and wa- 
ters, and were crowded, I may say packed in- 
to the 'district box. Each one had scarcely 
more space than to allow him to shift his head 
from an inclination to one shoulder to an in- 
clination to the other, or from leaning on the 
right elbow, to leaning on the left. There 
we were, the blood of health bouncing through 
our veins, feeding our strength, swelling our 
dimensions — and there we must stay, three 
hours on a stretch, with the exception of the 
afore-mentioned recess. No wonder that we 
should prize this brief period high, and rush 
tumultuously out doors to enjoy it. 

There is one circumstance in going out 
which so much amuses my recollection, that f 
will venture to describe it to my readers. It 
is the making of our bows, or manners, as it 
is called. If one wishes to see variety in the 
doing of a single act, let him look at school 
boys, leaving their bows at the door. Tell me 
not of the diversities and characteristics, of 
the gentilities and the awkwardnesses, in the 
civility of shaking hands. The bow is as 
diversified and characteristic, as awkward or 
genteel, as any movement many-motioned man 
is called on to make. Especially in a country 



96 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

school, where fashion and politeness have not 
altered the tendencies of nature by forming 
the manners of all after one model of propri- 
ety. Besides, the bow was before the shake, 
both in the history of the world, and in that of 
every individual man. No doubt the world's 
first gentleman, nature-taught, declined his 
head in some sort, in saluting for the first time 
the world's first lady, in primitive Eden. 
And no doubt every little boy has been in- 
structed to make a " nice bow," from chubby 
Cain, Abel and Seth, down to the mannered 
younglings of the present day. 

Well then, it is near half past ten, A. M. 
but seemingly eleven to the impatient young- 
sters, anticipation rather than reflection, be- 
ing the faculty most in action just now. At 
last the master takes out his watch and gives 
a hasty glance at the index of the hour. Or 
if this premonitory symptom does not appear, 
watching eyes can discern the signs of the 
time in the face relaxing itself from severe 
duty, and in the moving lips just assuming 
that precise form necessary to pronounce 
the sentence of liberation. Then, make 
ready, take aim, is at once the order of every 
idler. ' The boys may go out.' The little 
white heads on the little seat, as it is called, 



i 



AS IT WAS. 97 

are the foremost, having nothing in front to 
impede a straight forward saliy. One -little 
nimble foot is at the door in an instant, and 
as he lifts the latch, he tosses off a bow over 
his left shoulder, and is out in a twinkling. 
The next perhaps squares himself towards 
the master with more precision, not having 
his attention divided between opening the 
door and leaving his manners. Next comes 
the very least of the little, just in front of the 
big-boy rush behind him, tap-tapping and 
tottering along the floor, with his finger in his 
nose, but in wheeling from his bow, he blun- 
ders head first through the door, in his anxiety 
to get out of the way of the impending 
throng of fists and knees behind, in avoiding 
which he is prostrated under the tramp of 
cowhide. 

Now come the bigs from behind the writ- 
ing benches. Some of them make a bow 
with a jerk of the head and snap of the neck 
possible only to giddy-brained, oily-jointed 
boyhood. Some, whose mothers are of the 
precise cast, or who have had their manners 
stiffened at a dancing-school, will wait till the 
throng is a little thinned, and then they will 
strut out with their arms as straight at their 
sides as if there were no such things as elbows, 
9 



98 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

and will let their upper person bend upon the 
middle hinge as if this were the only joint in 
their frames. Some look straight at their toes, 
as the face decends toward the floor. Others 
strain a glance up at the master, displaying an 
uncommon proportion of that beauty of the 
eye, the white. Lastly come the tenants of 
the extreme back seat, the Anaks of the school. 
One long-limbed, lank-sided, back-bending 
fellow of twenty is at the door at four strides ; 
he has the proper curve already prepared by 
his ordinary gait, and he has nothing to do 
but swing round toward the master, and his 
manners are made. Another, whose body is 
developed in the full proportions of manhood, 
turns himself half way and just gives the 
slightest inclination of the person. He thinks 
himself too much of a man to make such a 
ridiculous popping of the pate as the young- 
lings who have preceded him. Another with 
a tread that makes the floor tremble, goes 
straight out through the open door, without 
turning to the right or the left, as much as to 
say, l I am quite too old for that business.' 

There are two in the short seat at the end 
of the spelling floor who have almost attained 
to the glorious, or rather vain-glorious age of 
twentyone. They are perhaps even more 



AS IT WAS. 99 

aged than the venerable Rabbi of the school 
himself. So they respect their years, and 
put away childish things, inasmuch as they 
do not go out as their juniors do. One of 
them sticks to his slate. Jt is his last winter, 
and as he did not catch flying time by the 
forelock, he must cling to his heel. The oth- 
er unpuckers his arithmetical brow, puts his 
pencil between his teeth, leans his head on 
his right palm, with his left fingers adjusts his 
foretop, and then composes himself into an 
amiable gaze upon the fair remainder of the 
school. Perhaps his eye leaps at once to that 
damsel of eighteen in the furthermost seat, 
who is the secret mistress of his heart. 

How still it is in the absence of half the 
limbs and lips of the domain. That little girl 
who has been buzzing round her lesson like 
a bee round a honey-suckle, otf and on by 
turns, is now sipping its sweets, if any sweets 
there be, as closely and stilly as that same bee 
plunged in the bell of the flower. The secret 
of the unwonted silence is, the master knows 
on which side of the aisle to look for noise 
and mischief now. 

It is time for the boys to come in. The 
master raps on the window as a signal. At 
first they scatter in .one by one, keeping the 



100 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

door perpetually slamming. But soon, in 
rush the main body, pellmell, rubbing their 
ears, kicking their heels, puffing, panting, 
wheezing. Impelled by the temporary chill 
they crowd round the fire, regaining the need- 
ed warmth as much by the exercise of elbows 
as by the heat of fuei. ' Take your seats, 
you that have got warm, 5 says the master. 
No one starts. ' Take your seats, all of you. 5 
Tramp, tramp, how the floor trembles again, 
and the seats clatter. There goes an ink- 
stand. Ben pinches Tom to let him know 
that he must go in first. Tom stands back, 
but gives Ben a kick on the shins as he pass- 
es, to pay for that pinch. 

' The girls may go out. 5 The noise and 
confusion are now of the feminine gender. 
Trip, trip, rustle, rustle. Shall I describe 
the diversities of the courtesy 1 1 could pen 
a trait or two, but prefer to leave the subject 
to the more discriminating quill of the cour- 
tesying sex. The shrill tones and gossipping 
chatter of girlhood now ring from without. 
But they do not stay long. Trip, trip, rustle, 
rustle, back again. Half of them are suck- 
ing a lump of snow for drink. One has broken 
an icicle from the well-spout, and is nibbling 
it as she would a stick of candy. See Sarah 



AS IT WAS. 101 

jump. The ice-eater's cold, dripping hand 
has mischievously sprinkled her neck. Down 
goes the melting little cone, and is scattered 
in shivers. ' Take your seats,' says authori- 
ty with soft command. He is immediately 
obeyed ; and the dull routine rolls on toward 
noon. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

NOON— NOISE AND DINNER — SPORTS AT SCHOOL 
— COASTING — SNOW-BALLING — A CERTAIN 
MEMORABLE SNOW-BALL BATTLE. 

Noon has come. It is even half pist 
twelve, for the teacher got puzzled with a 
hard sum and did not attend to the second 
reading of the first class so soon as usual by 
half an hour. It has been hitch, hitch — 
joggle, joggle — creak, creak, all over the 
school-room for a considerable time. ' You 
are dismissed,' comes at last. The going out 
of half the school only was a noisy business, 
but now there is a tenfold thunder, augment- 
ed by the windy rush of many petticoats. 
All the voices of all the tongues now split or 
rather shatter the air, if I may so speak, 
9* 



102 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

There are more various tones than could be 
indicated by all the epithets ever applied to 
sound. 

The first manual operation is the extrac- 
ting of certain parcels from pockets, bags, 
baskets, hat-crowns, and perhaps the capa- 
cious cavity formed by the tie of a short open 
frock. Then what a savory development — 
bread, cheese, cakes, pies, sausages, and ap- 
ples without number. Jt is voice versus ap- 
petite now for the occupancy of the mouth. 
Or to speak less lawyer-like and more popu- 
larly, they have a. jaw together. 

The case is soon decided, that is, dinner is 
despatched. Then commences what, in view 
of most of us, is the chief business of the day. 
Before describing this, however, I would pre- 
mise a little. The principal allurement and 
prime happiness of going to school as it used 
to be conducted, was the opportunity it af- 
forded for social amusement. Our rural 
abodes were scattered generally a half or a 
quarter of a mile apart, and the young could 
not see each other every day as conveniently 
as they can in a city or a village. The school- 
ing season was therefore looked forward to as 
one long series of holydays, or as Mark Mar- 
tin once said, as so many thanksgiving days, 
except the music, the sermon and the dinner. 



AS IT WAS. 103 

Mark Martin, let me mention by the way, 
was the wit of the school. Some of his say- 
ings that made us laugh at the time, I shall 
hereafter put down. They may not affect the 
reader, however, as they did us, for the lack 
of his peculiar manner which set them off. 
' What, a droll fellow Mark Martin is,' used 
to be the frequent expression. 

Should I describe all the pastimes of the 
winter school, it would require more space 
than befits my plan. 1 shall therefore touch 
only on one or two of the different kinds of 
out-door frolic — such only as are peculiar to 
winter and give a particular zest to the school- 
ing season. 

Of all the sportive exercises of the winter 
school, the most exhilarating, indeed intensely 
delightful, was sliding down hill, or coasting 
as it is called. Not having the privilege of 
this, excepting in the snowy season, and then 
with frequent interruptions, it was far more 
highly prized. The location of our school 
was uncommonly favorable for this diversion. 
Situated as we were on a hill, we could go 
down like arrows for the eighth of a mile on 
one side, and half that distance on the other. 
Almost every boy had his sled. Some of us 
got our names branded on the vehicle, and 



104 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

prided ourselves in the workmanship or the 
sw iftness of it, as mariners do in that of a ship. 
We used to personify the dear little speeder 
with a she and a her, seaman-like also. Take 
it when a few days of severely cold and clear 
weather have permitted the road to be worn 
icy irmooth, and the careering little coaster is 
the most enviable pleasure-rider that was ever 
eager to set out or sorry to stop. The very 
tugging up hill back again is not without its 
pit asure. The change of posture is agree- 
able, and also the stir of limb and stretch of 
muscle for the short time required to return 
to the starting place. Then there is the look- 
ing forward to the glorious down-hill again. 
In all the pleasures of human experience there 
is nothing like coasting, for the regular al- 
ternation of glowing anticipation and frame- 
thrilling enjoyment. 

Had there been a mill-pond or any other 
sufficient expanse of water near the old school 
house, I should probably now pen a paragraph 
on the delights of skating; but as there was 
not, and this was not therefore one of our 
school-sports, such a description would not 
properly belong to these annals. 

But. there is another pastime which comes 
only with the winter and is enjoyed mostly at 



AS IT WAS. 



105 



school, to which I will devote a few pages. 
It is the chivalrous pastime of snow-balling. 
Take for instance the earliest snow of winter, 
falling gently and stilly with its feathery flakes, 
of just the right moisture for easy manipula- 
tion. Or when the drifts soften in the mid- 
winter thaw, or begin to settle beneath the 
lengthened and sunny days of March, then 
is the season for the power and glory of a 
snow-ball fight. The whole school of the 
martial sex are out of a noon time, from the 
veterans of a hundred battles down almost to 
the freshest recruits of the little front seat. 
Half against half, unless a certain number 
agree to take all the rest. The oldest are op- 
posed to the oldest in the hostile array, so 
that the little round, and perhaps hard missile 
may not be out of proportion to the age, size 
and toughness of the antagonist likely to be 
hit. The little boys of course against the lit- 
tle, with this advantage, that their discharges 
lose most of their force before reaching the 
object aimed at. When one is hit he is not 
merely wounded, he is a dead man as to this 
battle. Here, no quarter is asked or given. 
The balls whistle, the men fall, until all are 
defunct but one or two individuals, who re- 



106 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

main unkilled because there is no enemy left 
to hurl the fatal ball. 

But our conflicts were not always make- 
believes, and conducted according to the for- 
mal rules of play ; these sham-fights some- 
times waxed into the very reality of war. 

The school was about equally divided be- 
tween the East and the West ends of the dis- 
trict. There had from time immemorial come 
down a rivalry between the two parties in re- 
spect to physical activity and strength. At the 
close of the school in the afternoon, and at the 
parting of the scholars on their different ways 
toward home, there were almost always a few 
farewells in the form of a sudden trip-up, a dab 
of snow, or an icy-ball almost as tenderly 
soft and agreeable of contact as that mellow 
thing, a stone. These valedictories were as 
courteously reciprocated from the other side. 

These slight skirmishes would sometimes 
grow into a general battle, when the arm was 
not careful to proportion the force just so as 
to touch and no more, as in a noon day game. 

One battle I recollect which is worthy of 
being commemorated in a book, at least a 
book about boyhood, like this. It is as fresh 
before my mind's eye as if it were but yester- 
day. To swell somewhat into the pompous, 



AS IT WAS. 107 

glorious Waterloo could not be remembered 
by its surviving heroes with greater tena- 
city or distinctness. 

It had gently but steadily snowed all one 
December night, and almost all the next day. 
Owing to the weather, there were no girls 
excepting Capt. Clark's two, and no very 
small boys at school. The scholars had been 
unusually playful through the day, and had 
taken liberties which would not have been tol- 
erated in the full school. 

When we were dismissed at night the snow 
had done falling, and the ammunition of just 
the right moisture, lay in exhaustless abun- 
dance on the ground, all as level as a floor, 
for there had been no wind to distribute une- 
qually the gifts of the impartial clouds. The 
first boy that sprang from the threshold caught 
up a quart of the spotless but viscid material, 
and whitewashed the face of the next one at 
the door, who happened to belong to the rival 
side. This was a signal for general action. 
As fast as the troops poured out they rush- 
ed to the conflict. We had not the coolness 
deliberately to arrange ourselves in battle 
order, line against line, but each aimed at each 
as he could, no matter whom, how, or where, 
provided that he belonged to the ' other end * 



108 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

We did not round the snow into shape but 
hurled and dashed it in large masses, as we 
happened to snatch or scoop it up. As the 
combatants in gunpowder war are hidden from 
each other by clouds of their own raising, so 
also our warriors clouded themselves from 
sight. And there were other obstacles to vis- 
ion besides the discharges in the air ; for one 
or both the eyes of us all were glued up and 
sealed in darkness by the damp, sticky mat- 
ter. The nasal and auditory cavities too were 
temporarily closed. And here and there a 
mouth opening after a little breath, received 
the same snowy visitation. 

At length from putting snow into each oth- 
er, we took to putting each other into the 
snow. Not by the formal and deliberate wres- 
tle, but pell-mell, hurly-burly, as foot, hand, 
or head could find an advantage. The com- 
batants were covered with the clinging ele- 
ment. It was as if their woolen habiliments 
had turned back to their original white. So 
completely were we all besmeared by the same 
material, that we could not tell friend from foe 
in the blind encounter. No matter for this ; 
we were now crazed with fun ; and we were 
ready to carry it to the utmost extent that time, 
and space, and snow would admit. Just op- 



AS IT WAS. 100 

posite the school house door the hill descended 
very steeply from the road for about ten rods. 
The stone wall just here was quite low, and 
completely covered with snow even before this 
last fall. The two stoutest champions of the 
fray had been snowing it into each other like 
storm -spirits from the two opposite poles. At 
length as if their snow-bolts were exhausted, 
they seized each other for the tug of muscle 
with muscle. They had unconsciously work- 
ed themselves to the precipitous brink. An- 
other stout fellow caught a glimpse of their 
position, gave a rush and a push, and both 
Arctic and Antarctic went tumbling heels 
hindmost down the steep declivity, until they 
were stopped by the new fallen snow in which 
they were completely buried ; and one with 
his nose downward as if he had voluntarily 
dived into his own grave. This was a signal 
for a general push-off, and the performer of 
the sudden exploit was the first to be gather- 
ed to his victims below. In five minutes all 
were in the same predicament but one, who 
not finding himself attacked, wiped the plas- 
ter from his eyes, and saw himself the lone 
hero of the field. He gave a victorious 
shout, then not liking solitude for a play- 
mate, he made a dauntless leap after the rest, 
10 



110 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

who were now thickly rising from their snowy 
burial to life, action and fun anew. Now 
the game is to put each other down, down, to 
the bottom of the hill. There is pulling, 
pushing, pitching and whirling, every species 
of manual attack, except the pugilistic thump 
and knock-down. One long lubber has fallen 
exactly parallel with the bottom, and before 
he can recover himself two others are rolling 
him down like a senseless log, until the lum- 
berers themselves are pitched head first over 
their timber by other hands still behind them. 
But at length we are all at the bottom of the 
hill, and indeed at the bottom of our strength. 
Which End had the day could not be deter- 
mined. In one sense it belonged to neither, 
for it was night. We now found ourselves in 
a plight not particularly comfortable to our- 
selves nor likely to be very agreeable to the 
domestic guardians we must now meet. But 
the battle has been described, and that is 
enough ; there is no glory in the suffering that 
succeeds. 



AS IT WAS. Ill 



CHAPTER XVII. 

ARITHMETIC — COMMENCEMENT — PROGRESS — 
LATE IMPROVEMENT IJM THE ART OF TEACH- 
ING IT. 

At the age of twelve I commenced the 
study of Arithmetic, that chiefest of sciences 
in Yankee estimation. No man is willing 
that his son should be without skill in figures. 
And if he does not teach him his A, B, C, at 
home, he will the art of counting, at least. 
Many a father deems it no hardship to instruct 
his child to enumerate even up to a hundred, 
when it would seem beyond his capacity or 
certainly beyond the leisure of his rainy days 
and winter evenings to sit down with the for- 
mality of a book and teach him to read. 

The entering on arithmetic was quite an 
era in my school-boy life. This was placing 
me decidedly among the great boys and with- 
in hailing distance of manhood. My feelings 
were consequently considerably elevated. A 
new Adams' Arithmetic of the latest edition 
was bought for my use. It was covered by 
the maternal hand with stout sheep-skin, in 
the economical expectation that after I had 



112 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

done with it, it might help still younger heads 
to the golden science. A quire of foolscap 
was made to take the form of a manuscript of 
the full length of the sheet, with a pasteboard 
cover, as more suitable to the dignity of such 
superior dimensions than flimsy brown paper. 

I had also a bran new slate, for Ben used 
father's old one. It was set in a frame wrought 
by the aforesaid Ben, who prided himself on 
his knack at tools, considering that he had 
never served an apprenticeship at their use. 
There was no lack of timber in the fabrica- 
tion. Mark Martin said that he could make 
a better frame with a jack-knife in his left 
hand, and keep his right in his pocket. 

My first exercise was transcribing from my 
Arithmetic to my manuscript. At the top of 
the first page I penned Arithmetic, in capi- 
tals an inch high, and so broad that this one 
word reached entirely across the page. At a 
due distance below, I wrote the word Addi- 
tion in large, coarse hand, beginning with a 
lofty A, which seemed like the drawing of a 
mountain peak, towering above the level wil- 
derness below. Then came Rule, in a little 
smaller hand, so that there was a regular gra- 
dation from the enormous capitals at the top, 
down to the fine running — no, hobbling hand 
in which I wrote off the rule. 



AS IT WAS. 113 

Now slate and pencil and brain came into 
use. I met with no difficulty at first ; Simple 
Addition was as easy as counting my fingers. 
But there was one thing I could not under- 
stand — that carrying of tens. It was abso- 
lutely necessary, I perceived, in order to get 
the right answer, yet it was a mystery which 
that arithmetical oracle, our schoolmaster, ; did 
not see fit to explain. It is possible that it 
was a mystery to him. Then came Subtrac- 
tion. The borrowing of ten was another 
unaccountable operation. The reason seem- 
ed to me then at the very bottom of the well 
of science; and there it remained for that 
winter, for no friendly bucket brought it up to 
my reach. 

Every rule was transcribed to my manu- 
script, and each sum likewise as it stood pro- 
posed in the book, and also the whole process 
of figures by which the answer was found. 

Each rule moreover was, or rather was to 
be committed to memory, word for word, 
which to me was the most tedious and diffi- 
cult job of the whole. 

I advanced as far as Reduction this first 
winter, and a third through my manuscript, 
perhaps. The end of the Arithmetic seem- 
ed almost as far off in the future as that 
10* 



114 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

end of boyhood and under-age restraint, twen- 
ty one. 

The next winter I began at Addition again, 
to advance just through Interest. My third 
season I went over the same ground again, 
and besides that, cyphered to the very last 
sum in the Rule of Three. This was deem- 
ed quite an achievement for a lad only fourteen 
years old, according to the ideas prevailing at 
that period. Indeed I was now fitted to fig- 
ure on and fill up the blank pages of manhood, 
to solve the hard question how much money 
I should be worth in the course of years. In 
plain language, whoever cyphered through the 
above mentioned rule was supposed to have 
arithmetic enough for the common purposes 
of life. If one proceeded a few rules beyond 
this, he was considered quite smart. But if 
he went clear through, Miscellaneous Ques- 
tions and all, he was thought to have an ex- 
traordinary taste and genius for figures. Now 
and then a youth, after having been through 
Adams, entered upon old Pike, the arithmet- 
ical sage who ' set the sums' for the preced- 
ing generation. Such were called ■ great 
Arithmeticians.' 

The fourth winter I advanced — but it is 
not important to the purpose of this work that 



AS IT WAS. 115 

I should record the minutiae of my progress 
in the science of numbers. Suffice it to say 
that I was not one of the ' great at figures.' 

The female portion of the school, we may 
suppose, generally expected to obtain husbands 
to perform whatever arithmetical operations 
they might need, beyond the counting of fin- 
gers, so the science found no special favor 
with them. Jf pursued at all, it was neglect- 
ed till the last year or two of their schooling. 
Most were provident enough to cypher as far 
as through the four simple rules ; for, although 
they had no idea of becoming oW maids, they 
might possibly however be left widows. Had 
arithmetic been pursued at the summer school, 
those who intended to be summer teach- 
ers would probably have thought more of the 
science, and have proceeded further, even per- 
haps to the Rule of Three. But a school-mis- 
tress would as soon have expected to teach the 
Arabic language, as the numerical science. 
So ignorance of it was no dishonor to even the 
first and best of the sex. 

But what a change the last few years have 
produced in respect to this subject. Honor 
and gratitude he to Pestalozzi ; thanks be to 
our countrymen, Colburn, Emerson, and oth- 
ers, for making what was the hardest and dri- 



116 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

est of studies, one of the easiest and most in- 
teresting. They have at length tackled the 
intellectual team aright ; have put the carriage 
behind the carrier ; pshaw ! this over-refine- 
ment spoils the illustration — the cart behind 
the horse, where it ought always to have been. 
Formerly, memory, the mind's baggage-wag- 
on, to change the word but continue the 
figure, was loaded with rules, rules, words, 
words, to top-heaviness, and sent lumbering 
along, while the understanding, which should 
have been the living and spirited mover of the 
vehicle, was* kept ill-fed and lean, and put 
loosely behind to push after as it could. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

AUGUSTUS STARR, THE PRIVATEER WHO TURNED 
PEDAGOGUE — HIS NEW CREW MUTINY, AND PER- 
FORM A SINGULAR EXPLOLT. 

My tenth winter our school was put under 
the instruction of a person named Augustus 
Starr. He was a native of a neighboring 
town, and had before been acquainted with 
the committee. He had taught school 
some years before, but for the last few years, 
had been engaged in a business not par- 



AS IT WAS. W- 



ticularly conducive to improvement in the art 
of teaching He had been an inferior officer 
aboard a privateer in the late war, which ter- 
minated only the winter before. At the return 
of peace he betook himself to land again ; and 
till something more suitable to his tastes and 
habits should offer, he concluded to resume 
school-keeping, at least for one winter. He 
came to our town, and finding an old acquaint- 
ance seeking for a teacher, he offered him- 
self and was accepted. He was rather gen- 
teelly dressed, and gentlemanly in his man- 
ners. 

Mr Starr soon manifested that stern com- 
mand, rather than mild persuasion, had been 
his method of preserving order, and was to be, 
still. This would have been put up with, but 
he soon showed that he could deal in blows 
as well as words, and these not merely with 
the customary ferule, or supple and tingling 
stick, but with whatever came to hand. He 
knocked one lad down with his fist, hurl- 
ed a stick of wood at another, which missed 
breaking his head because it struck the ceil- 
ing, making a dent which fearfully indica- 
tedwhat would have been the consequence 
had a skull been hit. The scholars were ter- 
rified, parents were alarmed, and some kept 



118 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

their younger children at home. There was an 
uproar in the district. A school-meeting was 
threatened for the purpose of dismissing the 
captain, as he began to be called, in reference 
to the station he had lately filled, although 
it was not a captaincy. But he commanded 
the school-house crew, so in speaking of him 
they gave him a corresponding title. In con- 
sequence of these indications, our officer be- 
came less dangerous in his modes of punish- 
ment, and was permitted to continue still in 
command. But he was terribly severe nev- 
ertheless ; and in his words of menace, he 
manifested no particular respect for that one 
of the ten commandments which forbids pro- 
fanity. But he took pains with his pupils, 
and they made considerable progress accord- 
ing to the prevailing notions of education. 

Toward the close of the school, however, 
Starr's fractious temper, his cuffs, thumps, 
and cudgellings waxed dangerous again. 
There were signs of mutiny among the large 
scholars, and there were provocations and 
loud talk among parents. The man of vio- 
lence even at this late period would have 
been dismissed by the authority of the dis- 
trict, had not a sudden and less formal ejec- 
tion overtaken him. 



AS IT WAS. 119 

The Captain had been outrageously severe, 
and even cruel to some of the smaller boys. 
The older brothers of the sufferers, with others 
of the back seat, declared among themselves, 
that they would put him by force out of the 
school-house, if any thing of the like should 
happen again. The very afternoon succeed- 
ing this resolution, an opportunity offered to 
put it to the test. John Howe, for some tri- 
fling misdemeanor, received a cut with the 
edge of the ruler on his head, which drew 
blood. The dripping wound and the scream 
of the boy, were a signal for action, as if a 
murderer were at his fell deed before their 
eyes. Thomas Howe, one of the oldest in the 
school and the brother of the abused, and 
Mark Martin were at the side of our privateer 
in an instant. Two others followed. His 
ruler was wrested from his hand and he was 
seized by his legs and shoulders, before he 
could scarcely think into what hands he 
had fallen. He was carried kicking and 
swearing out doors. But this was not the 
end of his headlong and horizontal career. 
' To the side-hill, to the side-hill,' cried Mark, 
who had him by the head. Now it so happen- 
ed that the hill-side opposite the school-house 
door was crusted, and as smooth and slippery 



120 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

as pure ice, from a recent rain. To this pitch 
then he was borne, and in all the haste that 
his violent straggles would permit. Over he 
was thrust as if he were a log, and down he 
went, giving one of his bearers a kick as he 
was shoved from their hands, which action of 
the foot sent him more swiftly on his way 
from the rebound. There was no bush or 
stone to catch by in his descent, and he claw- 
ed the unyielding crust with his nails, for the 
want of any thing more prominent on which 
to lay hold. Down, down he went. O for 
a pile of stones or a thicket of thorns to cling 
to, even at the expense of torn apparel or 
scratched fingers, Down, down he went, 
until he fairly came to the climax, or rather 
anti-climax of his pedagogical career. Mark 
Martin who retained singular self possession, 
cried out, ' there goes a shooting star.' 

When our master had come to a ' period 
or full stop,' to quote from the spelling-book, 
he lay a moment as if he had left his breath 
behind him, or as if querying whether he 
should consider himself alive or not ; or per- 
haps whether it were really his own honorable 
self who had been voyaging in this unseaman- 
like fashion, or somebody else. Perhaps he 
was at a loss for the points of compass, as is of- 



AS IT WAS. 121 

ten the case in tumbles and topsy turvies. He 
at length arose and stood upright, facing the 
ship of literature which he had lately com- 
manded, and his mutinous crew, great and 
small, male and female, now lining the side of 
the road next to the declivity, from which 
most of them had witnessed his expedition. 
The movement had been so sudden, and the 
ejection so unanticipated by the school in gen- 
eral, that they were stupified with amazement. 
And the bold performers of the exploit were 
almost as much amazed as the rest, excepting 
Mark, who still retained coolness enough for 
his joke. What think of..the coasting trade, 
Captain, shouted Mark, is it as profitable 
as privateering? Our coaster made no reply, 
but turned in pursuit of a convenient footing 
to get up into the road, and to the school- 
house again. While he was at a distance ap- 
proaching his late station of command, Mark 
Martin stepped forward to hold a parley with 
him. ' We have a word to say to you sir, be- 
fore you come much farther. If you will 
come back peaceably, you may come, but as 
sure as you meddle with any of us, we will 
make you acquainted with the heft and the 
hardness of our fists, and of stones and clubs 
too, if we must. The ship is no longer yours, 
11 



122 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

so look out, for we are our own men now.' 
Starr replied, ' I do not wish to have anything 
more to do with the school ; and there is anoth- 
er law besides club law, and that you have 
got to take.' But when he came up and saw 
John Howe's face stained with blood and his 
head bound up as if it had received the stroke 
of a cutlass, he began to look rather blank. 
Our spokesman reminded him of what he had 
done, and inquired ' which was the worst, a 
ride and a slide, or a gashed head V 'I rath- 
er guess that you are the one to look out for 
the law,' said Thomas Howe, with a threat- 
ening tone and look. Whether this hint 
had effect I know not, but he never commenc- 
ed a prosecution. He gathered up his goods 
and chattels and left the school-house. The 
scholars gathered up their implements of 
learning and left likewise, after the boys had 
taken one more glorious slide down hill. 

There were both gladness and regret in 
that dispersion ; gladness that they had no 
more broken heads, shattered hands and skin- 
ned backs to fear, and regret that the season 
of schooling and of social and delightful play 
had been cut short by a week. 

The news reached most of the district in 
the course of the next day, that our ' man of 



AS IT WAS. 123 

war" as he was sometimes called, had sailed 
out of port the night before. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

ELEVENTH WINTER— MR SILVERSON, OUR FIRST 
TEACHER FROM COLLEGE — HIS BLUNDER AT 
MEETING ON THE SABBATH — HIS CHARACTER AS 
A SCHOOLMASTER. 

This winter Major Allen was the commit- 
tee, and of course everybody expected a 
dear master if not a good one, he had always 
expressed himself so decidedly against ' your 
cheap trash.' They were not disappointed. 
They had a dear master, high priced and not 
much worth. Maj. Allen sent, to college for 
an instructor, as a young gentleman from such 
an institution must of course be qualified as 
to learning, and would give a higher tone to 
the school. He had good reason for the ex- 
pectation, as a gentleman from the same in- 
stitution had taught the two preceding winters 
in another town where Maj. Allen was in- 
timately acquainted, and gave the highest sat- 
isfaction. But he was a very different sort of 
person from Mr Frederic Silverson, of the city 



124 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

of , member of the Junior class in 

College. This young gentleman did not teach 
eight weeks at eighteen dollars per month, for 
the sake of the trifling sum to pay his college 
bills, and help him to rub a little more easily 
through. He kept for fun, as he told his fel- 
low bucks ; that is, to see the fashions of 
country life, ' cut capers' among folks whose 
opinion he did n't care for, and to bring back 
something to laugh about all the next term. 
The money too was a consideration, as it 
would pay a bill or two which he preferred 
that his very indulgent father should not know 
of. 

Maj. Allen had written to some of the col- 
lege authorities for an instructor, not doubting 
that he should obtain one of proved worth, or 
at least one who had been acquainted with 
country schools in his boyhood, and would 
undertake with such motives as would ensure 
a faithful discharge of his duties. But a tu- 
tor, an intimate acquaintance of Silverson's 
family, was requested to aid the self-rusticat- 
ing son to a school, so by this means this city 
beau and college buck was sent to preside 
over our district seminary of letters. 

Well, Mr Silverson arrived on Saturday eve- 
ning at Capt. Clark's. Sunday, he went to 



AS IT WAS. 125 

meeting. He was indeed a very genteel look- 
ing personage, and caused quite a sensation 
among the young people in our meeting-house, 
especially those of our district. He was tall, 
but rather slender, with a delicate skin, and 
a cheek whose roses had not been uprooted 
from their native bed by what in college is 
called hard digging. His hair was cut and 
combed in the newest fashion, as was suppos- 
ed, as it was arranged very differently from 
that of our young men. Then he wore a 
cloak of many colored plaid, in which flaming 
red however was predominate. A plaid cloak 
— this was a new thing in our obscure town 
at that period, and struck us with admiration. 
We had seen nothing but surtouts and great 
coats from our fathers' sheep and our mothers' 
looms. His cravat was tied behind ; this was 
another novelty. We had never dreamed but 
that the knot should be made, and the ends 
should dangle beneath the chin. Then his 
bosom flourished with a ruffle and glistened 
with a breast-pin, such as were seldom seen 
so far among the hills. 

Capt. Clark unconsciously assumed a state- 
liness of gait unusual to him, as he led the 
way up the centre aisle, introduced the gen- 
tleman into his pew, and gave him his own 
11* 



126 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

seat, that is, next the aisle, and the most re- 
spectable in the pew. The young gentleman 
not having been accustomed to such deference 
in public, was a little confused. And when 
he heard 'that is the new master,' whispered 
very distinctly by some one near, and on look- 
ing up saw himself the centre of an all sur- 
rounding stare, he was smitten with a fit of 
bashfulness, such as he had never felt before. 
So he quiddled with his fingers, sucked and 
bit his lips as a relief to his feelings, the same 
as those rustic starers would have done at a 
splendid party in his mother's drawing rooms. 
During singing he was intent, on the hymn- 
book, in the prayer he bent over the pew-side, 
and during the sermon looked straight at the 
preacher, a church like deportment which he 
had never perhaps manifested before, and 
probably may never have since. He was cer- 
tainly not so severely decorous in that meeting- 
house again. After the forenoon services he 
committed a most egregious blunder, by 
which his bashfulness was swallowed up in 
shame. It was the custom in country towns 
then, for all who sat upon the centre or broad 
aisle as it. was called, to remain in their pews 
till the reverend man of the pulpit had passed 
along by. Our city bred gentleman was not 



AS IT WAS. 127 

apprized of this etiquette, for it did not prevail 
in the metropolis. Well, as soon as the last 
amen was pronounced, Capt. Clark politely 
handed him his hat, and being next to the 
pew door, he supposed that he must make his 
egress first. He stepped out and had gone 
several feet down the aisle, when he observed 
old and young standing in their pews on both 
sides in front of his advance, staring at him 
as if surprised, and some of them with an in- 
cipient laugh. He turned his head and gave 
a glance back, and behold he was alone in 
the long avenue, with a double line of eyes 
aimed at him from behind as well as before. 
All seemed waiting for the minister, who by 
this time had just reached the foot of the pul- 
pit stairs. He was confounded with a con- 
sciousness of his mistake. Should he keep 
on or return to the pew, was a momentary 
question. It was a dilemma worse than any 
in logic, it was a severe screw*. But finally 
back he was going, when behold Capt. Clark's 
pew was blocked up by the out-poured and 
out-pouring throng of people, with the minis- 

* When a scholar gets considerably puzzled in 
recitation, he is said in college to take a screw. When 
he is so ignorant of his lesson as not to be able to re- 
cite at all, he takes a dead set. 



128 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

ter at their head. This was a complete dead 
set, ' above all Greek, above all Roman fame/ 
What should he do now 1 He wheeled again, 
dropped his head, put his left hand to his face, 
and went crouching down the aisle, and out 
at the door, like a boy going out with the 
nose-bleed. 

On the ensuing morning our collegian com- 
menced school. He had never taught, and 
had never resided in the country before. He 
had acquired a knowledge of the daily routine 
usually pursued in school, from a class-mate 
who had some experience in the vocation. So 
he began things right end foremost, and fin- 
ished at the other extremity in due order, but 
they were most clumsily handled all the way 
through. His first fault was exceeding indo- 
lence. He had escaped beyond the call of 
the morning prayer bell that had roused him 
at dawn, and he seemed resolved to replenish 
his nature with sleep. He was generally 
awakened to the consciousness of being a 
schoolmaster by the ringing shouts of his 
waiting pupils. Then a country breakfast was 
too delicious a contrast to college commons, to 
be cut short. Thus that point of duration 
called nine o' clock, and school time, often 



AS IT WAS. 129 

approximated exceedingly near to ten that 
winter. 

Mr Silverson did not visit in the several 
families of the district, as most of his prede- 
cessors had done He would have been pleas- 
ed to visit at every house, for he was socially 
inclined, and what was more, he desired to 
pick up ' food for fun' when he should return 
to college. But the people did not think 
themselves 'smart' enough to entertain a 

collegian, and the son of the rich Mr , 

of the city of , besides. Or perhaps, 

what is coming nearer the precise truth, 
his habits and pursuits were so different from 
theirs, that they did not know exactly how to 
get at him, and in what manner to attempt to 
entertain him. And he, on the other hand, 
did not know how to fall into the train of their 
associations in his conversation, so as to make 
them feel at ease, and as it were, at home with 
him. Another circumstance ought to be men- 
tioned perhaps. The people very soon con- 
tracted a growing prejudice against our school- 
master on account of his very evident unfit- 
ness for his present vocation, and especially his 
unpardonable indolence and neglect of duty. 

So Mr Silverson was not invited out, except- 
ing by Maj. Allen who engaged him, and by 



130 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

two or three others who chanced to come in 
contact with him, and to find him more socia- 
bly disposed and a less formidable personage 
than they anticipated. He spent most of his 
evenings therefore at his boarding place, with 
one volume in his hand, generally that of a 
novel, and another volume issuing from his 
mouth — that of smoke ; and as his chief ob- 
ject was just to kill time, he was not careful 
that the former should not be as fumy, as base- 
less and as unprofitable as the latter. As for 
the Greek, Latin, and Mathematics to which 
he should have devoted some portion of his 
time, according to the college regulations, he 
never looked at them till his return. Then he 
just glanced them over, and trusted luck when 
he was examined for two weeks' study, as he 
had done a hundred times before at the daily 
recitation. 

What our young college buck carried back 
to laugh about all the next term, I do not 
know, unless it was his own dear self for being 
so foolish as to undertake a business for which 
he was so utterly unfit, and from which he 
derived so little pleasure compared with his 
anticipations. 

Before closing this chapter I would caution 
the reader not to take the subject of it as a 



AS IT WAS. 131 

specimen of all heirs of city opulence who are, 
or have been members of college, and have 
perhaps attempted country school-keeping. 
I have known many of very different stamp. 
One gentleman in particular rises to recollec- 
tion, the son of very affluent but also very ju- 
dicious parents. While a student in college, 
he took a district school for the winter vaca- 
tion. His chief purpose was to add to his 
stores of valuable knowledge and prepare him- 
self for wider usefulness. He would not study 
the things of Ancient Greece and Rome, and 
of Modern Europe, and neglect the customs 
and manners, and the habits of thinking and 
feeling characteristic of his own nation. But 
his own nation were substantially the farmers 
and mechanics scattered on the hills and 
along the valleys of the country. To the coun- 
try he must therefore go, and into the midst 
of their very domestic circles to study them. 
But he did not seek this advantage to the dis- 
advantage of the school committed to his 
charge. He endeavored to make himself ac- 
quainted with his duties as much as he con- 
veniently could beforehand, and then he de- 
voted himself assiduously to them. In the 
instruction of the young he derived a benefit 
additional to his principal object in taking the 



132 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

school. He learned the art of communication 
— of adapting himself to minds differing in 
capacity and cultivation from his own. In 
this way he acquired a tact in addressing the 
young and the less intelligent among the 
grown-up, which is now not only a gratifica- 
tion, but of great use. He became moreover 
interested in the great subject of education, 
more than he otherwise would — the educa- 
tion of the great mass of the people ; so that 
now he is one of the most ardent and efficient 
agents in the patriotic and benevolent work. 

This gentleman was exceedingly liked as a 
teacher, and was very popular as a visitor in 
the families of the district. f He seems so 
like one of us. He has n't an atom of pride.' 
Such were the frequent remarks. And this 
was what they did not expect of a collegian, 
city born, and the son of one of the richest 
men in the state. 

He has often remarked since, that these 
two months spent in a district school and 
country neighborhood were of as much value 
to him as any two months of his life ; indeed 
of more value than any single year of his life. 
His books enriched and disciplined his mind 
perhaps, but this mingling with the middle 
rank of which the great majority is composed, 



AS IT WAS. 133 

more thoroughly Americanized his mind. By 
his residence among the country people, he 
learned to do what should be done by every 
citizen of the United States, however distin- 
guished by birth, wealth, talents or education 
— he learned to identify himself with the 
great body of the nation, to consider himself 
as one of the People. 



CHAPTER XX. 

A COLLEGE MASTER AGAIN— HIS CHARACTER IN 
SCHOOL AND OUT— OUR FIRST ATTEMPTS AT 
COMPOSITION — BRIEF SKETCH OF ANOTHER 
TEACHER. 

My twelfth winter has arrived. It was 
thought best to try a teacher from College 
again, as the committee had been assured 
that there were teachers to be found there of 
the first order, and well worth the high price 
they demanded for their services. A Mr El- 
lis was engaged at twenty dollars per month, 
from the same institution mentioned before. 
Particular pains were taken to ascertain the 
college character and school-keeping experi- 
ence of the gentleman before his engagement, 
12 



134 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

and they were such as to warrant the highest 
expectations. 

The instructor was to board round in the 
several families of the district, who gave the 
board in order to lengthen the school to the 
usual term. It happened that he was to be at 
our house the first week. On Saturday Mr 
Ellis arrived. It was a great event to us chil- 
dren for the Master to stop at our house, and 
one from College too. We were smitten with 
bashfulness, and stiffened into an awkward- 
ness unusual with us even among strangers. 
But this did not last long. Our guest put us all 
at ease very soon. He seemed just like one of 
us ; or like some unpuffed-up uncle from gen- 
teeler life, who had dropped in upon us for a 
night, with cordial heart, chatty tongue, and 
merry laugh. He seemed perfectly acquainted 
with our prevailing thoughts and feelings, and 
let his conversation slide into the current they 
flowed in, as easily as if he had never been 
nearer College than we ourselves. With my 
father he talked about the price of produce, the 
various processes and improvements in agricul- 
ture, and the politics of the day, and such oth- 
er topics as would be likely to interest a farmer 
so far in the country. And those topics in- 
deed were not a few. Some students would 



AS IT WAS. 135 



have set in dignified or rather dumpish silence, 
and have gone to bed by mid-evening, simply 
because those who sat with them could not 
discourse on those deep things of science and 
lofty matters of literature which were particu- 
larly interesting to themselves. With my 
mother Mr Ellis talked at first about her chil- 
dren. He patted a little brother on his cheek, 
took a sister on his knee,' and inquired the ba- 
by's name. Then he drew forth a housewifely 
strain concerning various matters in country 
domestic life. Of me he inquired respecting 
my studies at school years past ; and even 
condescended to speak of his own boyhood and 
youth, and of the sports as well as the du- 
ties of school The fact is, that Mr Ellis had 
always lived in the country till three years 
past and his mind was full of rural remem- 
brances, and he knew just how to take us to 
be agreeable himself, and to elicit entertain- 
ment in return. 

Mr Ellis showed himself at home in school 
as well as at the domestic fireside. He was 
perfectly familiar with his duties as custom 
had prescribed them. But he did not abide 
altogether by the old usages. He spent much 
time in explaining those rules in Arithmetic, 
and Grammar, and those passages in the 



136 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

Spelling-book with which we had hitherto 
lumbered our memories. 

This teacher introduced a new exercise in- 
to our school, that we had never thought of 
before as being possible to ourselves. It was 
Composition. We hardly knew what to make 
of it. To write — to put sentence after sen- 
tence like a newspaper, a book, or a sermon — 
O, we could not do this ; we could not think 
of such a thing ; indeed it was an impossibili- 
ty. But we must try, at any rate. The sub- 
ject given out for this novel use of thought 
and pen, was friendship. Friendship — what 
had we to say on this subject. We could feel 
on it perhaps, especially those of us who had 
read a novel or two, and had dreamed of eter- 
nal friendship. But we had not a single idea. 
Friendship 1 O, it is a delightful thing. This 
or something similar was about all we poor 
creatures could think of. What a spectacle 
of wretchedness did we present. A stranger 
would have supposed us all smitten with the 
tooth-ache, by the agony expressed in the face. 
One poor girl put her head down into a cor- 
ner and cried till the master excused her. And 
finally, finding that neither smiles nor frowns 
would put ideas into our heads, he let us go 
for that week. 



AS IT WAS- 137 

In about a fortnight, to our horror the exer- 
cise was proposed again. But it was only to 
write a letter. Any one could do as much 
as this, the master said, for almost every one 
had occasion to do it in the course of life. 
Indeed, we thought on the whole that we could 
write a letter, so at it we went with considerable 
alacrity. But our attempts at the epistolary 
were nothing like those spirited and even witty 
products of thought, which used ever to be 
flying from seat to seat in the shape of billets. 
The sprightly fancy and the gushing heart 
seemed to have been chilled and deadened by 
the reflection that a letter must be written, and 
the master tnust see it. These epistolary com- 
positions generally began, continued, and 
closed all in the same way as if all had got the 
same recipe from their grandmothers for letter 
writing. They mostly commenced in this 
manner. ' Dear Friend, I take my pen in 
hand to inform you that I am well, and hope 
you are enjoying the same blessing.' Then 
there would be added, perhaps, ' We have a 
very good schoolmaster. Have you a good 
one ? How long has your school got to keep ? 
We have had a terrible stormy time on %' &c. 
Mark Martin addressed the master in his epis- 
tle, What its contents were I could not find 
12* 



138 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

out, but I saw Mr Ellis read it. At first he 
looked grave, as at the assurance of the youth, 
then a little severe, as if his dignity was out- 
raged, but in a moment he smiled, and final- 
ly he almost burst out with laughter at some 
closing witticism. 

Mark's was the only composition that had 
any nature and soul in it. Lie wrote what he 
thought, instead of thinking what to write, 
like the rest of us, who in the effort thought 
just nothing at all, for we wrote words which 
we had seen written a hundred times before. 

Mr Ellis succeeded in delivering us from our 
stale and flat formalities before he had done. 
He gave us no more such abstract and lack- 
idea subjects as friendship. He learned bet- 
ter how to accommodate the theme to the 
youthful mind. We were set to describe what 
we had seen with our eyes, heard with our 
ears, and what had particularly interested our 
feelings at one time and another. One boy 
described the process of cider-making. An- 
other gave an account of a squirrel hunt. 
Another of a great husking ; each of which 
had been witnessed the autumn before. The 
girls described certain domestic operations. 
One, I remember, gave quite an amusing ac- 
count of the coming, and going, and final 



AS IT WAS. 



139 



tarrying of her mother's soap. Another pen- 
ned a sprightly dialogue, supposed to have 
taken place between two sisters on the ques- 
tion, which should go a visiting with mother, 
and which should stay at home and ' take 
care of the things.' 

The second winter (for he taught two) Mr 
Ellis occasionally proposed more abstract sub- 
jects, and such as required more thinking and 
reasoning, but still such as were likely to be 
interesting, and on which he knew his schol- 
ars to possess at least a few ideas. 

I need not say how popular Mr Ellis was in 
the district. He was decidedly the best 
school-master I ever went to, and he was the 
last. 

I have given him a place here, not because 
he is to be classed with his predecessors who 
taught the District School as it was, but be- 
cause he closed the series of my own instruc- 
tors there, and was the last moreover, who 
occupied the old school-house. He commen- 
ced a new era in our district. 

Before closing, I must give one necessary 
hint. Let it not be inferred from this narra- 
tive of my own particular experience, that the 
best teachers of district schools are to be found 
in college only. The very next winter the 



140 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

school was blessed with an instructor even 
superior to Mr Ellis, although he was not a 
Collegian. Mr Henry however had well dis- 
ciplined and informed his mind, and was, 
moreover, an experienced teacher. I was not 
one of his pupils, but I was in the neighbor- 
hood, and knew of his methods, his faithful- 
ness, and success. His tall, spare, stoop- 
ing and dyspeptic form is now distinctly be- 
fore my mind's eye. I see him wearied with 
incessant exertion, taking his way homeward, 
at the close of the afternoon school. His 
pockets are filled with compositions to be 
looked over in private. There are school- 
papers in his hat too. A large bundle of 
writing books is under his arm. Through 
the long evening, and in the little leisure of 
the morning, I see him still hard at work for 
the good of his pupils. Perhaps he is sur- 
rounded by a circle of the larger scholars 
whom he has invited to spend the evening 
with him, to receive a more thorough expla- 
nation of some branch or item of study, than 
there was time for in school. But stop — Mr 
Henry did not keep the District School as it 
wa$ t why then am I describing him ? 



AS IT WAS. 141 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE EXAMINATION AT THE CLOSING OF THE 
SCHOOL. 

The District School as it was, generally 
closed in the winter with what was called an 
Examination. This was usually attended by 
the Minister of the town, the Committee who 
engaged the teacher, and such of the parents 
as chose to come in. Very few however 
were sufficiently interested in the improve- 
ment of their children, to spend three uncom- 
fortable hours in the hot and crowded school- 
room, listening to the same dull round of 
words, year after year. If the school had 
been under the care of a good instructor all 
was well of course, if a poor one, it was too 
late to help it. Or perhaps they thought they 
could not afford the time on a fair after- 
noon, and if the weather was stormy, it was 
rather more agreeable to stay at home ; be- 
sides, ' no body else will be there, and why 
should I go.' Whether such were the reflec- 
tions of parents or not, scarcely more than 
half of them, at most, ever attended the exam- 
ination. I do not recollect that the summer 
school was examined at all. I know not the 



142 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

reason of this omission, unless it was that such 
had been the custom from time immemorial. 

We shall suppose it to be the last day of the 
winter school. The scholars have on their 
better clothes if their parents are somewhat 
particular, or if the every-day dress ' looks 
quite too bad.' The young ladies especially, 
wear the next best gown, and a more cleanly 
and tastefully worked neckerchief. Their 
hair displays more abundant curls and a more 
elaborate adjustment. 

It is noon. The school room is undergoing 
the operation of being swept as clean as a 
worn out broom in the hands of one girl, and 
hemlock twigs in the hands of others will 
permit. Whew — what a dust. Alas for 
Mary's cape, so snow-white and smooth in the 
morning. Hannah's curls which lay so close to 
each other, and so pat and still on her temples, 
have got loose by the exercise, and have stretch- 
ed themselves into the figure of half straight- 
ened corkscrews, nearly unfit for service. 
The spirit of the house-wife dispossesses the 
bland and smiling spirit of the schoolgirl. 
The masculine candidates for matrimony can 
now give a shrewd guess who are endued with 
an innate propensity to scold ; who will be 
Xantippes to their husbands, should they ever 



AS IT WAS. 143 

get their Cupid's nests made up again so as 
to catch them. ' Be still Sam, bringing in 
snow/ screams Mary. ' Get away boys, off 
out doors, or I'll sweep you into the fire,' snaps 
out Hannah, as she brushes the urchins' legs 
with her hemlock. ' There take that,' 
screeches Margaret, as she gives a povoking 
lubber a knock with the broom handle, ' there 
take that, and keep your wet, dirty feet down 
off the seats.' The sweeping and scolding 
are at length done. The girls are now brush- 
ing their clothes by Happing handkerchiefs 
over themselves and each other. The dust 
is subsiding ; one can almost breathe again. 
The master has come, all so prim with his best 
coat and a clean cravat, and may be, a collar 
is stiff and high above it. His hair is comb- 
ed in its genteelest curvatures. He has re- 
turned earlier than usual, and the boys are 
cut short in their play — the glorious fun of 
the last noon-time. But they must all come 
in. But what shall t)ie visitors sit on? 'Go 
up to Capt. Clark's and borrow some chairs,' 
says the master. A half a dozen boys are off 
in a moment, and next, more than half a doz- 
en chairs are sailing, swinging and clattering 
through the air, and set in a row round the 
spelling floor. 



144 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

The school are at length all seated at their 
books, in palpitating expectation. The mas- 
ter makes a speech on the importance of speak- 
ing up ' loud and distinct, 5 and of refraining 
from whispering and all other things well 
known to be forbidden. The writing books 
and cyphering manuscripts are gathered and 
piled on the desk or the bench near it. 
' Where is your manuscript, Margaret 1 ' 'I 
carried it home last night.' ' Carried it home ! 
what's that for 1 ' ' Cause I was ashamed 
on 't, I haven't got half so far in rethmetic 
as the rest of the girls who cypher, I 've had 
to stay at home so much.' 

A heavy step is heard in the entry. All is 
hush within. They do nothing but breathe. 
The door opens — it is nobody but one of the 
largest boys who went home at noon. There 
are sleigh bells approaching, hark, do they 
stop? yes, up in Capt. Clark's shed. Now 
there is another tread, then a distinct and con- 
fident rap. The master opens the door, and 
the minister salutes him, and advancing, re- 
ceives the simultaneous bows and courtesies of 
the awed ranks in front. He is seated in the 
most conspicuous and honorable place, per- 
haps in the magisterial desk. Then some of 
the neighbors scatter in and receive the same 



AS IT WAS. 145 

homage, though it is proffered with a more 
careless action and aspect. 

Now commences the examination. First, 
the younger classes read and spell. Observe 
that little fellow as he steps from his seat to 
take his place on the floor. It is his day of 
public triumph ; for he is at the head ; he has 
been there the most times, and a ninepence 
swings by a flaxen string from his neck. His 
skin wants letting out, it will hardly hold the 
important young gentleman. His mother 
told him this morning, when he left home c to 
speak up like a minister,' and his shrill oratory 
is almost at the very pinnacle of utterance. 

The third class have read. They are now 
spelling. They are famous orthographers ; 
the mightiest words of the spelling columns 
do not intimidate them. Then come the 
Numbers, the Abreviations, and the Punctu- 
ation. Some of the little throats are almost 
choked by the hurried ejection of big words 
and stringy sentences. 

The master has gone through with the sev- 
eral accomplishments of the class. They are 
about to take their seats. ' Please to let them 
stand a few moments longer. I should like to 
put out a few words to them, myself,' says the 
minister. Now look out. They expect words 
13 



146 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

as long as their finger, from the widest columns 
of the spelling-book, or perhaps such as are 
found only in the Dictionary. ' Spell wrist,' 
says he to the little sweller at the head. ' O 
what an easy word ! ' r-i-s-t wrist. It is not 
right. The next, the next — they all try, or 
rather do not attempt the word, for if r-i-s-t 
does not spell wrist, they cannot conceive 
what does. ' Spell gown, Anna.' G-o-u-n-d 
1 O no, it is gown, not gound. The next try.' 
None of them can spell this. He then puts 
out penknife, which is spelt without the k, 
and then andiron, which his honor at the 
head rattles off in this way, ' h-a-n-d hand 
i-u-r-n urn hand-iurn. 

The poor little things are confused as well 
as discomfited. They hardly know what it 
means. The teacher is disconcerted and 
mortified. It dawns on him that while he 
has been following the order of the book, and 
priding himself that so young scholars can 
spell such monstrous great words — words 
which perhaps they will never use, they cannot 
spell the names of the most familiar objects. 
The minister has taught him a lesson. 

The writing books are now examined. 
The mighty pile is lifted from the desk and 
scattered along through the hands of the vis- 



AS IT WAS. 147 

itors. Some are commended for the neatness 
with which they have kept their manuscripts. 
Some for improvement in writing. Of some, 
probably of the majority, is said nothing at all. 

Whew ! softly breathed the minister, as he 
opened a writing book, some of whose pages 
were a complete ink-souse. He looked on 
the outside, and Simon Patch was the name 
that lay sprawling in the dirt which adhered 
to the newspaper cover. Simon spied his 
book in the revered gentleman's hands, and 
noticed his queer stare at it. The minister 
looked up ; Simon shrunk and looked down, 
for he felt that his eye was about to seek him. 
He gazed intensely in the book before him 
without seeing a word ; at the same time 
earnestly sucking the pointed lapel of his 
Sunday coat. But Simon escaped without 
any audible rebuke. 

Now comes the Arithmetical examination ; 
that is, the proficients in this branch are re- 
quired to say the rules. Alas me, I had no 
reputation at all in this science. I could not 
repeat more than half the rules I had been 
over, nor more than the half of that half in 
the words of the book, as others could. What 
shame and confusion of face were mine on the 
last day, when we came to be questioned in 



148 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

Arithmetic. But when Mr Ellis had his ex- 
amination I looked up a little, and felt that I 
was not so utterly incompetent as my pre- 
vious teachers, together with myself, had sup- 
posed. 

Then came the display in Grammar, our 
knowledge of which is especially manifested 
in parsing. A piece is selected which we 
have parsed in the course of the school, and 
on which we are again drilled so as to become 
as familiar with the parts of speech, and the 
governments and agreements of which, as we 
are with the buttons and the button-holes of 
our jackets. We appear of course amazingly 
expert. 

We exhibited our talent at reading likewise, 
in passages selected for the occasion, and 
conned over, and read over, until the dull- 
est might call all the words right, and the 
most careless mind all the ' stops and marks.' 

But this examination was a stupid piece of 
business to me, as is evident enough from this 
stupid account of it. The expectation and 
preparation were somewhat exhilarating as I 
trust, has been perceived ; but as soon as the 
anticipated scene had commenced, it grew 
dull, and still more dull, just like this chapter. 

But let us finish this examination now we 



AS IT WAS. 149 

are about it. Suppose it finished then. The 
minister remarks to the teacher, * your school 
appears very well, in general, sir ; ' then he 
makes a speech, then a prayer, and his 
business is done. So is that of school-mas- 
ter and school. * You are dismissed,' is ut- 
tered for the last time this season. It is almost 
dark, and but little time left for a last trip-up, 
snow-ball, or slide down hill. The little boys 
and girls, with their books and dinner baskets, 
ride home with their parents, if they happen 
to be there. The larger ones have some last 
words and laughs together, and then they leave 
the Old School-house till December comes 
round again. 



CHAPTER XXIL 

THE OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE AGATN — ITS APPEARANCE 
THE LAST WINTER — WHY SO LONG OCCUPIED — 
A NEW ONE AT LAST. 

My first chapter was about the Old School- 
house, so shall be my last. The declining 
condition in which we first found it, has wax- 
ed into exceeding infirmity by the changes of 
thirteen years. After the summer school 
13* 



150 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

succeeding ray thirteenth winter of district 
education, it was sold and carried piece-meal 
away, ceasing forever from the form and name 
of school-house. 

I would have my readers see how the long- 
used and hard-used fabric appeared, and how 
near to dissolution it came before the district 
could agree to accommodate their children 
with a new one. 

We will now suppose it my last winter at 
our school. Here we are inside, let us look 
around a little. 

The long writing benches arrest our atten- 
tion as forcibly as anything in sight. They 
were originally of substantial plank, an inch 
and a half thick. And it is well that they 
were thus massive. No board of ordinary 
measure would have stood the hackings and 
hewings, the scrapings and borings which 
have been inflicted on those sturdy plank. In 
the first place, the edge next the scholar is 
notched from end to end, presenting an ap- 
pearance something like a broken-toothed 
mill-saw. Upon the upper surface there has 
been carved or pictured with ink, the likeness 
of all things in the heavens and on earth, ever 
beheld by a country school-boy ; and sundry 
guesses at things he never did see. Fifty 



AS IT WAS. 151 

years has this poor timber been subjected to 
the knives of idlers, and almost the fourth of 
fifty I have hacked on them myself; and by 
this last winter their width has become dimin- 
ished nearly one half. There are moreover 
innumerable writings on the benches and 
ceilings. On the boy's side were scribbled 
the names of the Hannahs, the Marys, and 
the Harriets, toward whom young hearts were 
beginning to soften in the first gentle meltings 
of love. One would suppose that a certain 
Harriet A. was the most distinguished belle 
the district has ever produced, from the fre- 
quency of her name on bench and wall. 

The cracked and patched and puttied win- 
dows are now still more diversified by here 
and there a square of board instead of glass. 

The master's desk is in pretty good order. 
The first one was knocked over in a noon-time 
scuffle, and so completely shattered as to ren- 
der a new one necessary. This has stood 
about ten years. 

As to the floor, had it been some winters 
we could not have seen it without considerable 
scraping away of dust and various kinds of lit- 
ter; for a broom was not always provided, and 
boys would not wallow in the snow after hem- 
lock, and sweeping could not so well be done 



152 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

with a stick. This winter, however, Mr Ellis 
takes care that the floor shall be visible the 
greater part of the time. It is rough with 
sundry patches of board nailed over chinks and 
knot-holes made by the wear and tear of 
years. 

Now we will look at the fire-place. One 
end of the hearth has sunk an inch and a half 
below the floor. There are crevices between 
some of the tiles, into which coals of fire some- 
times drop and smoke up and make the boys 
spring for snow. The andirons have each 
lost a fore-foot, and the office of the important 
member is supplied by bricks which had been 
dislodged from the chimney-top. The fire- 
shovel has acquired by accident or age a ven- 
erable stoop. The tongs can no longer be 
called a pair, for the lack of one of the fellow- 
limbs. That bar of iron running from jamb 
to jamb in front, how it is bent and sinking in 
the middle, by the pressure of the sagging 
fabric above. Indeed the whole chimney is 
quite ruinous. The bricks are loose here and 
there in the vicinity of the fire-place ; and the 
chimney-top has lost so much of its cement 
that every high wind dashes off a brick, roll- 
ing and sliding on the roof, and then tum- 
bling to the ground, to the danger of cracking 



AS IT WAS. 153 

whatever heedless skull may happen in the 
way. 

The window-shutters after having shattered 
the glass by the slams of many years, have 
broken their own backs at length. Some 
have fallen to the ground, and are going the 
way of all things perishable. Others hang by 
a single hinge, which is likely to give way at 
the next high gale, and consign the dangling 
shutter to the company of its fellows below. 

The clapboards are here and there loose, 
and dropping one by one from their fastenings. 
One of these thin and narrow appendages stick- 
ing by a nail at one end, and loose and sliver- 
ed at the other, sends forth the most ear-rending 
music to the skilful touches of the North-west. 
In allusion to the soft-toned instrument of JSolus 
it may be termed the Borean harp. Indeed so 
many are the avenues by which the wind pass- 
es in and out, and so various are the notes, ac- 
cording as the rushing air vibrates a splinter, 
makes the windows clatter, whistles through a 
knot-hole, and rumbles like big base down the 
chimney, that the edifice may be imagined 
uproarious winter's Panharmonicon,* played 
upon in turn by all the winds. 

* The Panharmonicon is a large instrument in 
which the peculiar tones of several smaller instru- 
ments are comhined. 



154 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 

Such is the condition of the Old School- 
house, supposing it to be just before we leave 
it forever, at the close of my thirteenth and 
last winter at our district school. It has been 
resorted to summer after summer, and winter 
after winter, although the observation of pa- 
rents and the sensations of children have long 
given evidence that it ought to be abandoned. 

At every meeting on school affairs that has 
been held for several years, the question of 
a new school-house has been discussed. All 
agree on the urgent need of one, and all are 
willing to contribute their portion of the 
wherewith ; but when they attempt to decide 
on its location, then their harmonious action 
is at an end. All know that this high bleak 
hill, the coldest spot within a mile, is not the 
place ; it would be stupid folly to put it here. 
At the foot of the hill on either side is as snug 
and pleasant a spot as need be. But the East- 
enders will not permit its location on the op- 
posite side, and the West-enders are as obsti- 
nate on their part. Each division declares 
that it will secede and form a separate district 
should it be carried further off, although in 
this case they must put up with much cheap- 
er teachers, or much less schooling, or submit 
to twice the taxes. 



AS IT WAS. 155 

Thus they have tossed the ball of discus- 
sion, and sometimes hurled that of contention 
back and forth, year after year, to just about 
as much profit, as their children have flung 
snow-balls in play, or chips and cakes of ice 
when provoked. At length Time, the final 
decider of all things material, wearied with 
their jars, is likely to end them by tumbling 
the old ruin about their ears. 

Months have passed ; it is near winter again. 
There is great rejoicing among the children, 
satisfaction among the parents, harmony be- 
tween the two ends. A new School-house has 
been erected at last — indeed it has. A door 
of reconciliation and mutual adjustment was 
opened in the following manner. 

That powerful-to-do, but tardy personage 
the Public, began to be weary of ascending 
and descending Capt. Clark's hill. He began 
to calculate the value of time and horseflesh. 
One day it occurred to him that it would be 
as * cheap and indeed much cheaper,' to go 
round this hill at the bottom than to go round 
it over the top ; for it is just as far from side 
to side of a ball in one direction as in another, 
and this was a case somewhat similar. He 
perceived that there would be no more gained 



156 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL, &C 

in the long run by the expense of carrying 
the road an eighth of a mile to the South and 
all on level ground, than there would be by 
still wasting the breath of horse and the pa- 
tience of man in panting up and tottering down 
this monstrous hill. It seemed as if he had 
been blind for years, not to have conceived of 
the improvement before. No time was to be 
lost now. He lifted up his many-tongued 
voice, and put forth his many-handed strength, 
and in the process of a few months a road was 
constructed, curving round the south side of 
the aforesaid hill, which after all, proved to be 
but a few rods longer from point to point, than 
the other. 

The district were no longer at variance 
about the long needed edifice. The afore- 
mentioned improvement had scarcely been de- 
cided on, before every one perceived how the 
matter might be settled. A school-meeting 
was soon called, and it was unanimously 
agreed to erect a new school-house on the 
new road, almost exactly opposite the old spot, 
and as equidistant from the two Ends, it was 
believed, as the equator is from the poles. 

Here Mr Henry taught the District School 
somewhat as it should be ; and it has never 
since been kept as it was. 



